Your friends are misinformed. Require them to cite their sources. These rules are still in place and there are no considerations of removing them.
It is likely that removing them would have a very negative impact on the game – it would look more like volleyball, with rallies of more than a couple shots being an exception. In addition, these faults are extremely rare and thereby do not interrupt the flow of the game. Therefore, BWF has not announced any plans, and there are no serious discussions, of modifying or removing these rules.
From the official BWF laws: