The point is that white box macros are not deprecated. They will continue to be supported for a loooooong time. If you’re using Scala for that, you’re also unlikely to want to upgrade to Scala 3 in the long term.
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It is a good news for those who like whitebox macros, and it is a bad news for those who do not like it. 
(Because migration to scala 3 may be a little bit slower)
Seriously, there is another point.
The whitebox macros is not replacement of improving other type support.
The whitebox macros can be too complicated for some users.
There is many hidden cost
- support ide
- migrate ide
- skills to write and support ide and macros.
- etc
I think, it is the main reason why scala 3 does not have whitebox macros.
But let’s return to the main theme.
Is there need of Bigdecimal literal?
My own opinion is not good indicator
But I just could not imagine any enterprise DB(Oracle, postgresql) without decimal arithmetic.
So I think the decimal number is basic type for many areas of business applications.
Just a quick note: “supported” means different things to different people.
Yes, we’re not actively going to remove the feature from the 2.x series, but that’s about it. You should consider this “deprecated” in the sense that we “dis-recommend” using it. We (at Lightbend) are also not going to invest in fixing bugs in this (general) area. For our commercial users, this feature is not “supported” in the support contract sense (although we always try to help where we can).
What a golden opportunity for anyone willing to enter the macro support space and clean up!
Contextual support alone could carry several full-time engineers well into the next decade.