The flat-4 went away in the 80s because Honda had maximized the power output of it and was running into issues with "smoothness" as they tried to further increase the power to compensate for the weight gain of the GW. That's when they went up to a six-cylinder, to be able to create the power without drivability issues (i.e. vibration, roughness at certain rpms; indicative of high performance engines). This is all based on what I read about the history and evolution of the GW over the past 42 years.

However, an electric hybrid setup could maintain or increase current power while allowing engine displacement to be reduced. Going to a flat-4 would increase foot and leg room, one of the enduring issues with the current platform. Fuel economy would go up significantly too!

I would like to see how this hypothetical configuration works. If they use a DCT, would it deactivate the electric motor in manual shift mode? There would be an automatic clutch, wouldn't there? I would probably just leave it in "automatic" mode as long as it is smooth.

Even if none of this true, it is fun to speculate.