No. The cake is going to stay. At least that's my opinion. It's way too established in Hedgewars. It's also probably the most unique weapon in Hedgewars, so definitely I am against removal.

Note you can set up any weapon scheme you want. You could make a weapon scheme in which there are no cakes, or they can only be found in crates.
Experimenting with your own rules a bit is a big part of Hedgewars. A scheme set without starter cakes would be a perfectly valid to play.

But I think the cake is good as-is.

You could also argue the very same way same against dynamite. Just saying. Not every weapon needs a lot of skill, that's true. The interesting part is more about how you use weapons in your greater strategy to harm your opponents the most.

I don't know what the other developers think, however.

All teams get 1 cake when playing with default settings. This is fair.

Eh... "unfair" it's something to manage - I would tentatively agree that a 4 hog default game on a medium map is slightly super weapon heavy for skilled players. but for noob/modestly skilled I think it's reasonable, which is what it is aimed at. Protecting yourself from cake is pretty easy IMO. It's just one more thing to account for in end-game.

You mostly want to make sure the terrain is detached. Blowtorch works well, blowing up bridges..
Or that the path is blocked. Girders, dirt spray, cleaver.. Can even protect strong hogs using a weak hog when darksiding.

I dunno, I think it's fine. Add few more hogs if you think the default set is too strong for your # of teams and player skill levels.

And yeah, is easy to remove super weps from highlander or default ammo sets if you feel like it.

Lemme add a probable solution, out of the current box (other than the quick, ahem... "removal").

Since it's hard to avoid cake's danger range--That is, as far there's a patch of land connecting caster and target position, the cake surely may hit em' with almost no major effort required (if in range, assuming player know how to use cake properly)--while the usage is still VERY simple, then so I believe adding more challenge in controlling the cake would be a good workaround, in this case.

How about general obstacles for cake's cakewalk (eh...)? I mean, cake will trigger landmines and sticky mines if caught in proximity, and so the cake has some sort of 'HP' like barrels do, which if goes zero or below zero will implode the cake immediately. Making fire capable of damaging the cake is another good idea too! So the player required to think before unleashing the cake (our current cake only need two button push, just press then release then wait then press then explode, simple). Then if it still too simple then the cake will trigger airmines too! If it does still too simple for you people then um, uff, how about a fuel instead of our ol' timer? The fuel decreases on every horizontal moves, decrease each tick, and decrease more if going uphill, etc. What? It still a piece of cake (pun?) you say? Well then, uh... What if... No, wait wait... Um, how about a 90'degree surface walk reverse cake's movement? It acts like a barricade so the player may barricade themselves from the cake by constructing a vertical girder, and so on. Please stop, it's all I've got xD

TL'DR: Just add more challenge for controlling the cake

Anyway
If none suit your deep uncanny desire, then removing the cake from your game scheme is the ultimate solution, and the simplest one too, hehe x)

This is the most true statement in this topic. Default settings can have even a Melon Bomb and it would bring chaos, but wouldn't be "unfair" in any way, since everyone has the weapon. Other than that, there are more OP and "brainless" weapons, so the complain is pointless.