And the reason distros do this is because modules like mod_php and mod_perl have historically not worked well with other MPMs. As far as I'm aware this should be resolved with newer versions of Apache and the modules. Also historically the MPM was built into the server and required a rebuild, but newer versions provide the MPM as a loadable module. But the distros have very long upgrade cycles and are hesitant to change their defaults since they don't want to break peoples existing setups.

If you care about performance then you probably don't want to use the distribution's copy. People tend to use NGINX's distributions directly from NGINX or build it on their own. Since NGINX didn't have dynamic loadable modules until recently that drove more people to build their own copies.

I do think it's fair to say that NGINX has a reputation for getting better performance out of the box without configuration. However, it doesn't take long before you have to start tweaking it as well in my experience.

So I don't think some peoples impressions of Apache are entirely unfair but I don't think they are entirely fair either. But this shouldn't surprise anyone given that NGINX is a business and has a marketing department. Apache is a foundation and really doesn't market like NGINX does.