The decision to exclude realistic physics was to the benefit of story mode, but to the detriment of sandbox mode. There’s a sense of satisfaction to physics as close to reality as possible; watching a building cripple under its own weight if you destroy the right supports. However, any game that has such physics would make campaigns with specific missions much more obnoxious and difficult beat. That said, any game that has such physics would make a sandbox mode much less “thorough” as well. You no longer receive that sense of satisfaction from the thoroughness of the game’s realism. And since most people prefer this game for its sandbox capabilities, I feel like it would’ve been a better decision to make the physics as realistic as possible (if either one or the other were the only two options). Ideally, if it were up to me, I’d have it be a setting that you could toggle for any particular gamemode, as another commenter mentioned.