we know the old times consequences of it: a thousand sans AUs, sans receiving overwhelmingly more attention from outside and inside the fandom than even frisk or flowey
but also, i want to talk from a game design perspective: the requisites to achieving this route. you need to literally grind xp for like 20 minutes straight on a single room in the ruins, without the gaming giving any true indication that something will change.
you can get even misteryman/gaster door or gaster stuff by pure luck, but not this.
therefore, it seems it was supposed(if you weren't spoiled on the genocide route on your first playthrough) to be a more secret route, not a route that feels like it got even more famous than pacifist route itself. seems like it was supposed to be a route that you do AFTER you'd have dived deep into the fandom, not before.
to simplify the post into a catchphrase exxagerated meme: "sans bossfight and its consequences have been a disaster for the undertale community"
