Seems like you're some kind of purest...go back to the Alpha versions? Which, they actually make really easy.

Personally I like features that provide a new purpose and build off of existing systems. Horse armor is a a natural progression for protecting your horse. Its mirrors the player armor system with materials (leather to diamond). Wolf armor breaks the mold, it could mimic player/horse armor in mechanics and material progression, but instead it comes from armodillo scales with seemingly no way to upgrade. They even copied the ability to dye the armor - they probably copy pasted the code for leather and made a new redundant item.