I remember one of the Motorola phones was designed for expansions, but that was pre-USB C. If you had a horizontally symmetrical phone, maybe widgets could solve the problem? Front facing and rear facing, while also being privacy respecting, no notch necessary, and similar resolution to boot. so maybe easier to source. Free up some room on the SOC and relieve some complexity while providing the added benefit of port protection. Presumably this could be applied to SD and obviously 3.5mm jacks.
Ok, let's just accept now that you live in an isolated bubble, if your experience with video calls is "I've seen it used once and to a disastrous result."
I'm not denying your experience, but it's not the experience of the vast majority of the modern world now, across all categories of people. Many people may not use video calls regularly, but most people have had more experience than "seen it used once."