The problem isn't about laziness, it is about defaults.

If Microsoft removed them, installing an update to PS could literally break existing scripts. Sure, you can trivially fix it by re-creating the aliases, but only after you realise that an Update broke it.

Exactly, which is why they can't just switch it back. But people are on the attack about something so trivial. For anyone who needs "the de-facto curl or wget" then create a custom alias or re-assign the old one. It's a minor inconvenience, whereas if Microsoft were to patch it and break existing systems that would be more worthy of criticism..

One imagines a sort of "boilerplate" at the top of every script, patiently fixing various P$ mistakes before the script actually gets to work. I've seen similar things in other challenged environments.