What happened to honesty?

A lot of your arguments seem to revolve around corporate deniability - I find this a bit ethically dubious. There is a reason you can get a court order to recover email, phone records, minutes and the like - it is to stop companies doing illegal things. What you seem to be saying isn't "stop doing those things" but "here, you can hide the evidence like this".

For some information, like confidential analysis work, secure deletion is essential. Not because it may be discovered in a court case, but because it may be stolen or inadvertently left open to the world.

There is enough corporate crime - at least knowing any documentation is up for grabs keeps companies like Intel on their toes. Don't help to give the impression that deleting evidence is normal business practice and should be facilitated.