Unused Picklist values hurt no one. They just sit there

Except they don't. Every Flow decision, every validation rule, every Apex switch statement that touches that field has to account for a value nobody's picked in two years, "just in case." That's not neutral clutter it's a live branch every future change has to reason around.

Pull a last-used report on the field. Zero picks in 14 months, deactivate it don't delete, history stays intact. The dropdown was never the problem. It was just where the fear became visible.