I don't know - I switched from Apache to NGINX because I preferred it's config formatting over writing XML when I stopped using things like CPanel. Many of the NGINX servers under my current role run the NGINX Lua module performing logic on over 1B requests per day. I do try to reduce dependency on modules, but that's not because it makes it too Apache-like, it's for simplicity's sake. If you don't want NGINX to have these features, don't compile it in, then boom. no longer bogged down.
imho its keyword engineering, but you can see given the history why nginx adopters aren't thinking that way.