Hey @ChrisDellen - thanks for posting in the Community!
As noted here, “a new unique Record ID is created for the resulting merged record. The original Record ID values will still point to the new merged record, so searching records with the original Record ID will return the new one.” Because I can definitely understand the value in your thought process, I might recommend posting the need for this in our Ideas Forum! This would allow other users to upvote your idea and allow for our Products team to see it directly!
Shane, Community Manager