There was some commentary in General regarding beans not being useful enough--more accurately, it was being said that bean trees were a "nuisance" because they weren't useful enough.
If beans need more uses, suggest new ones to the developers. More recipes, like Irish Stew (which has exactly 239 beans because one more bean, and it would be "too farty"), might be one option. Perhaps there might be additional ways to season a bean, like for making a paper tree... or, for an odd sort of turn, to seed new rocks to mine. Alternately, if the various types of beans (including plain) were no longer availabe from street spirits, the beans would have even more value when you want to plant something in your home garden!
And now, it occurs to me, as an additional idea: If bean trees, particularly at high health, produce more wood than the other trees when killed, people might want to raise them as a better source of lumber.