You can remove any element fro XML with an identity transform stylesheet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_transform#Using_XSLT_3
Regarding deprecation, that is not a problem, only removal.
Feature removal always is done in a next major release, so as long as you stay on a firmware level, there is no danger.
There are features deprecated in 3.8.0 firmware that have not been removed from latest firmware as of now ... ;-)
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Hermann Stamm-Wilbrandt
Compiler Level 3 support & Fixpack team lead
IBM DataPower Gateways (⬚ᵈᵃᵗᵃ / ⣏⠆⡮⡆⢹⠁⡮⡆⡯⠂⢎⠆⡧⡇⣟⡃⡿⡃)
https://stamm-wilbrandt.de/en/blog/------------------------------