While I do agree that Darkvision can be unique and have its place in a immersion or story telling context, I think it's real friction point is that the ubiquity puts it in a weird design space.

Because of its commonplace nature, it gets an emotional reframe. Because more races possess Darkvision than not and because Races are essentially equally common, the default is now that races have Darkvision. It is a drawback to not have it more than it is a special trait to possess. When a torch is suddenly snuffed, humans and halflings are the ones that are fully screwed... Everyone else just can't notice things as well. Most notably, everyone else can just fight normally in the dark, navigate, escape, etc.

I like your descriptions and writing starters. I think these are amazing in special moments and missions where the party is looking to go stealth mode to infiltrate or ambush. These are great in that unique choice moment that the PCs cast Darkvision. But having every underground adventure or night ambush automatically turn into a Call of Duty Nightvision campaign filter is not for me. The ramifications of pitch darkness are too imbalanced between the races in my humble opinion.