Prolly not the best UX design choice..

[hoodafoo]

Who signed-off on putting the Eject and Erase Disk option right next to each other??

I believe this started with Sonoma and is present in Sequoia. I can't speak about Tahoe

 

[Nermal]

Same person who put Edit and Undo Send (with no confirmation) next to each other in Messages. On a couple of occasions I've had entire paragraphs disappear after I've made a little typo and then clicked on the wrong thing.

 

[chabig]

It does't seem smart, but erase does require confirmation.

 

[Apathist]

Eject (but unfortunately not the misplaced Erase option) can be removed from the menu with OnyX, and I suppose it could then be placed, less conveniently, on the Quick Action submenu as a simple Automator workflow or whatever.

But I don't see an obvious way to replicate the function elsewhere on the main menu once it's been removed.

 

[hoodafoo]

funnily enough, my post has reminded me that dragging the external drive to trash can is the TRUE (and much safer) way to eject the drive on a Mac 😉