The abuse of the block feature is a problem yes, I too was a victim of “you’re wrong I’m right shut up blocked”.
But blocking can be useful too: if you disgrace someone and their posts? you can block them, someone is arrasing you? you can block them. (Arrassing post/comments wise, on private messages block will remain)
An issue can be fix by not removing the feature itself, like reporting miss information.
Regarding of the mute, is not exactly the same: if I mute someone, that someone can still comment under my posts, wich is the main reson I used to use the block, for not having imbeciles who thinks I’m an alien in the comment section.
I think the way twitter block used to work was a sword with two blades, useful in many cases but easily abusible.