It's not gone, I think majority of consumers today prefer a larger screen sized phone and usually we wait for Sept

Save your moolah for 7, which the specs you mentioned is speculated to be on the + model

That is very true. My 6+ can barely survive 8 hours in a day without charging because I heavily use it on games and videos, so if I applied the usage pattern on the SE i doubt it would give me 5 hours (since it's batt pack is far smaller than 6+).