Bench clearing brawls became a thing of the past when they put in the mandatory 3 game suspension for the coach if any player left the bench during a fight. Which is good because the bench clearers were the most boring fights imaginable.
And fighting could be banned, but the stick work would get worse and worse. And the fact remains that a one-on-one fight is usually pretty exciting. 90% of the people who complain about fighting just want to say bad things about hockey, they wouldn’t watch anyway.
I agree with all you said.
Check out some of the Bruins-Canadiens bench clearers from the early 1970s. They were fantastic. I was going to give you a link, but YouTube is down right now.