I am not sure why you imply that there was some evil scheme behind all this. In reality, things are a bit different: one group at Red Hat decided to put an end to TCP wrappers (which btw is something other distros already did a while back, we are late at the party), and another group then offered to make a more modern replacement available, that could cover some of the uses, in order not leave users in the cold. I am not sure why you think that's an evil thing to do? Isn't it nicer to drop something with a suggestion how to replace it then to drop it without replacement?
Also, let's not forget: this functionality is implemented in the kernel, systemd merely adds knobs to expose this kernel functionality to the user. Hence, no, this functionality didn't really "show up in systemd". It showed up in the kernel, and systemd just wraps it to make it usable.
I mean, this is a dilemma, isn't it? Whatever we do you are unhappy, right? ;-)
Lennart