You were not not endorsing them, you were claiming that they had to be sought out and that that was unnecessary complexity. It is no more added complexity to install some other Debian/Arch/FreeBSD/Fedora/whatever package than it is to install those operating systems' nginx and Apache packages, and saying otherwise is really looking for any excuse to reinforce an existing narrowminded prejudice rather than a real evaluation of complexity.
Read what I wrote again. "Seeking out" is not limited to just choosing a different package, it includes the cognitive costs of exploring an option that is hitherto unknown to oneself.
You only think I'm squirming because you are qualifying what "seeking out" means to a narrow view, ironically.
How would one who is unfamiliar with those "simpler HTTP servers" even know the fact without diving into comparing the complexities of Apache and nginx against the other options? Why dive into that complexity if one is already familiar with Apache and nginx, in this use case (I'm sure you'd agree that the average person tasked for this would be more likely to be familiar with those)? This is the point you're missing.