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If you don't need the "UPS" capability, you should be able to run them without a battery.

Not necessarily; laying aside the issue of whether the battery is even removable, a lot of devices expect to be able to lean on the battery for temporary spikes in power consumption. I don't specifically know that this affects phones, but I'd be surprised if it didn't

yes, and typically at the very least a protection circuit that needs to be implemented or faked, or whatever.

i replaced a swollen battery on a cheapo hotspot with an 18650, but i had to remove the protection chip from the old battery and wire that up with my battery holder. if i was more industrious/desperate i probably could have used the one in the 18650, but that was more fiddling than i wanted

Some phones refuse to boot without a battery. It was the case for my Lenovo P2.

The PinePhone boots without a battery but it's modem won't.

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