Altq adulteration

[Barney Cordoba]

Given that 99% of high performance systems don't use altq, what was/is the
reasoning to adulterate the base queuing system with ALTQ checks, rather
than having altq replace the  queuing/handoff routines for the small 
percentage of implementations that actual use it?

I understand why it was initially done. What I don't understand is why 
antiquated shaping infrastructure remains in the base path in 7.0 and 8.0.

Barney