Haven't checked the game yet but it wouldn't surprise me if they did remove it tho I don't understand why they would.

The cost is stamina and weapon durability and beating on an inanimate object would IMHO draw parallel to using a training dummy IRL.

As far as the "It's cheating~" angle, that hits me like the good oll bad days of Minecraft where people would semi regularly throw fits about people being able to make houses out of dirt. Demaning Mojang nerf dirt houses because those people weren't playing the game right.