Ordinals bloat the chain forcing nodes to store more data, making it slightly harder for normies to run nodes. Just because I drew a dickbutt on this dollar bill with a marker doesn’t increase the value of that dollar.

As for changing the protocol, I don’t know enough to give you a good enough answer. However, I do know that trying to reach consensus on other important changes (CTV, op-vault) is not an easy task. To change the protocol just to eliminate jpegs? IMO that’s not a battle worth fighting. Altcoins do have a steady history of going “comatose” so I don’t lose sleep over it.