True, Final Cut had feathering capabilities of its own, but Final Cut wasn’t able to dynamically link footage between itself and After Effects. Final Cut had Motion, which was disappointing in its own right, so they kind of had to include extra features so that people wouldn’t have to round trip it out to After Effects. Now, with Dynamic Link, round-tripping is essentially a thing of the past, and editing footage in After Effects has become more like using a filter than before.
It doesn’t make things any less irritating if you don’t have AE, but it seems like they’re trying to draw lines in the sand as to what can be categorized under “video editing” and what falls under “compositing and effects”.