yeah he could... they could very well go back to X1. if they took away megaman's charge shot and slide, who's to say they wont do the same or similar with X?
eg- take away his dash and air dash, and probably lower his charge shot's strength. and make you get the dash from an armor.
How much of a change would that really be, though? X couldn't air dash without the armor until.. What.. X8? The thing about the charge shot and the slide in Classic Series is that they're only as useful as they're designed for. I mean yeah, sometimes in the older game, mainly Quick Man's level, I got "man, a slide would be nice", but its not really necessary. If you never give it a reason, whats the point?
Also, I just remembered the game I'm playing, Rockman & Forte: Challenger from the Future for the wonderswan is 8bit and Forte can still shoot in 7 directions. So suck on that, whoever said Axl couldn't do it in 16-bit.