Likewise, "turn off read receipts" and "disable images" seem like two different things.

Go find a non technical person and ask them these two questions:

"Do you care if your ex-girl/boyfriend can tell every time you read an old email s/he sent you?"

"Have you disabled loading images by default in your email client?"

You will see that you are wrong.

EDIT: decided to listen to my own advice and conduct a (very non scientific obvs) twitter poll.

https://twitter.com/harryh/status/1146120438432616450

You're ignoring the vast majority of people who aren't aware that it's possible yet would care a great deal if they knew about it. In fact, that's the whole premise behind tracking pixels. It's victim blaming.