Maybe Debian maintainers consider it their role to do this, but that's absolutely not true in other distributions (e.g., one reason I use Arch is to avoid such tinkering). Down this road lies problems with incompatibilities and new bugs that are distro-specific.
As a user it defies my expectations to have software modified to remove functionality and retain the same name. This is a bit too opinionated for my tastes.
This. As a user and a developer I've had more than a few run-ins with a distro deciding to be a bit different, usually with no very weak justification (pedantic interpretations of some standard, attempts to make something 'neat', or just random changes that someone thought would be cool). Debian is especially bad at this, Arch tends to be better but they've also done some stupid things (python-as-python3 being a thorn in so many developer's side for years).
As a user it defies my expectations to have software modified to remove functionality and retain the same name. This is a bit too opinionated for my tastes.