What you consider a feature I consider a bug. Whatever was the predecessor of SWIFT was, was probably not intended to cut people off of international settlements, it was intended as a way to establish trust between otherwise untrustworthy parties. It's kinda to normal banks what the BIS(bank for international settlements) is to central banking.

The very fact that one party can bully others to completely shut off parties from international banking is probably not what a lot of countries thought when they joined the system.

The Chinese' CIPS actually uses the SWIFT messaging system underneath, although I imagine China to be as neutral as the US/SWIFT when their own interests are at risk.

As much as I dislike Crypto what it is today, in a way the idea behind it is supposed to decentralize the trust system that is at the core of SWIFT. Otherwise you should consider that the only way you can have a truely neutral settlement party(i.e. a neutral SWIFT), is if it is run in a country that is strong enough to have a fully independent economy(already unlikely) and has enough military power to support itself. But then the latters interest in global power would probably directly interfere with the concept of neutrality.