You can also require TO home delivery (but you will have to fight your HOA), if you are elderly or infirm. The handful of times HOAs have allowed this, there has typically been backlash toward the resident (anecdotes, not data).
No, it has not always been the case that the USPS mandated a reduced level of service to new housing developments. That is a big deal. They are effectively saying that they are not going to support door to door delivery to any housing community in America, regardless of what that housing community wants.
Living in NYC, my mail wasn't delivered to my door. Living in Houston, TX, my mail wasn't delivered to my door. Living in Webster, TX, my mail wasn't delivered to my door. Living in Pasadena, TX my mail wasn't delivered to my door.
My cabin in a small town in Colorado, mail is delivered to a letter box attached to my door (well used to, I have told the USPS to refuse all mail). My house in a small town in upstate NY, mail is delivered to the letter flap in my door. My friend who lives in a neighborhood in NJ built over 30 years ago, has to drive to get his mail because the community board chose no mail boxes.
The end result is the exact same, the USPS just decided to codify exactly what was already happening, so that they could standardize how they were supposed to use those mail rooms.
You are overly simplifying the cause and effect, mailbox down the road != usps delivering mail to everyone, thus I'm living in some fairy tail land that no longer exists.
You honestly do not see the difference between these two statements?
This is false, based on my own experience and the experience of others:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/when-usps-does-not...
"Since around 2013, though, the USPS HAS mandated new communities get a single mail hub, but it still satisfies their rule of delivering for every address."
This in no way satisfies delivering to every address. It is a clear break from this commitment.