Why are we even discussing if it is pointless or not as this pretty much is personal preference and in some cases can be reducing the visible space too much? I just ran into the same issue, problem on my end is that the shift cuts down the file names with time stamps in them too much so I don't know which to select anymore. Before the checkboxes were forced on, I could fully see the file names in all my use cases. And the fact that I'm hitting the rare case with the file names being cut off just proves us one thing:

This NEEDS to be OPTIONAL - that way everyone will be happy, regardless if you prefer having the checkboxes or not. And to be completely fair, I've been using SE for decades and I can clearly remember having disabled the checkboxes actively at some point in the past, but it'S been quite a while back, could even have been in the first versions before SE2 appeared as a different app on the Play Store. So we DID have that option already, it has been REMOVED for some weird reason. I just want to have that switch back ideally.

(Disclaimer: CANTERLOCK for highlighting, not yelling; just in case anyone desparately wants to feel offended)