I understand the necessity of consumable or costly material components, but what is the point—in terms of making the game more interesting—of inexpensive material components, like a leaf of sumac or a tiny ball of bat guano?

I've never seen anybody even bother with these kinds of particular items in any D&D 5e streams. Every caster uses either an arcane focus or a spell component pouch (or a musical instrument if a bard).

[This question][1] assumes such material components in 3e are a legacy feature from when most components were consumable, but for 5e is there any particular reason why many spells still require specific inexpensive material components instead of alone, general focus item?


  [1]: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/8721/