It's not a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake would have been having such power available on ports that even a reasonable person might short out by innocently connecting a USB C cable between them.
A couple 5.1k resistors add about $0.00001 to the BOM cost. The terrible mistake is on the designers of devices who try to forego these.
A couple 5.1k resistors add about $0.00001 to the BOM cost. The terrible mistake is on the designers of devices who try to forego these.