I guess my take on this is that I like the idea of breakers because it allows for more variance in gameplay. Let's take MKX. In MKX, you as the aggressor could go for more risky setups and it was enabled because you knew that if worst came to worst, you could breaker, as someone else mentioned.
But like, idk why we're acting like breakers are just something you got for free in MKX? You had to spend 2 meters of bar and all your stamina, and up until they decided to patch it in MKXL, you were basically putting yourself back in that position since the opponent still had theirs.
In MKX, you used meter a lot, it was customary that just about every character you're playing needed meter for all of their most damaging combos, and in half of the rosters' case, you also needed stamina to perform many of your most damaging combos/perform block pressure (Kitana, D'Vorah, Cassie, Tanya, Scorpion, etc.), so you were giving up a LOT if you used a breaker. It also added more depth to combat, where even at the pro level, not everyone immediately went for breakers because they knew it meant giving up a substantial part of their offensive capabilities, damage output, combo potential, etc., and it also didn't mean that you were immediately out of the clear either, since you could very easily get opened right back up after you did a breaker.
In MK11 this balance is shifted, because outside of wakeups, most characters did not use their defensive meters for anything, so it largely was just sitting there unused for many people. Since there was no real reason to not use the breakaway, you might as well use it.
I would also argue that removing breakers would mean you'd have to restructure the way combat in MK works, which many people are likely not on board with - I mean, look at how a lot of people have taken to MK11. A big complaint about MK11 is the lack of combo damage. In order to keep MK's very aggressor focused combat like we saw in MK9/X, I feel like combo damage would need to be lower, lest we end up in "Get hit twice and the round is already over and there was literally nothing you could do to return fire" on both sides, which I don't think would be very fun. This is part of why I can't do FPS's - getting killed in .5 seconds because of one misplay/mistake isn't fun to me, neither is killing someone else in .5 seconds - I would want the battles to be more drawn out and methodical, and not just down to getting hit once and the round being over, so that it was truly a back and forth. To me, the more fun option is then to allow for high combo damage, but give the person being combo'd the ability to break out if they're willing to give something important up so they can potentially make the comeback, but I respect if others don't.
