I think empty chests with a decent sell price (meaning YOU can sell to it) should be left. Of course chests that buy diamonds for 1 etc are not serious and should be removed.
I have quite a few shops I'd like to remove but when I go to delete the sign it goes onto the chest inventory.
some of your chests were removed, this was because there were 3 or more other chests with a higher price for purchasing that yours, and the players had money. so they were removed to make space available, they were empty at the time and would not be used due to players using the others for more money,
i did this for the entire mall yesterday morning or friday night... i forget which... removed a ton of empty chests, alot of the misplaced ones, ect
Unless they do in fact have a decent sell price, I think they should be removed without a doubt. Say, for example someone warps to the diamond shop in the mall and sees that the first 3 chests they try to buy from are out of stock (something that's not uncommon) they will most likely leave rather than continuing their search for a chest that's actually in stock. If on the other hand, all empty chests were removed, the buyer would obviously immediately go to the nearest in-stock chest and actually be able to make their purchase.