The difference is that ftp and http are international standards and not tied to any one vendor. The AppleTalk protocols are all, funnily enough, defined by Apple.

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Well, I get that part... just wondering if there's actually a pragmatic reason for breaking it (like they need the ports for something else) or if it's just a matter of forcing hardware upgrades.

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AFP (AppleShare) has evolved many times over the years, where FTP has been a "Gold" standard for decades. AFP originally shared using AppleTalk, then a mixture of AppleTalk and IP, and finally just IP. Even there, when Mac OS X came out, they continued to evolve it to version 3.0. Apparently, that version (3.0) is required now to share files. Mac OS 9 only went up to AFP 2.2.

I think the main reason for this is less to test for Apple. In reality, most people who care about this stuff are Classic Apple nerds like us.

I don't think Apple's trying to force Mac OS 9 users to upgrade. If you're still using Mac OS 9, Apple has long since given up on trying to upgrade you.