Apple is not nefariously gimping mice, they just don't see a world where people use non-Apple mice which have a touch surface for smooth scrolling. AFAIK this isn't an issue that can be solved with drivers. Logi's software has a persistent daemon that can convert your scrolling to smooth scrolling, but that requires leaving it open in the background. You can also use one of the dozens of open source apps that do the same thing.
I don't think it's nefarious, I think it's negligent. As I understand it, they changed something internal to how mouse motion is handled. The Magic Mouse speaks to the OS in a way that matches this change, and that was all they ever cared to ensure worked. They also don't support more than 3 buttons on a mouse well, because Apple doesn't make mice with more than 3 buttons. They did the same sort of thing with standard-DPI monitors; they didn't make them look bad on purpose, they just optimized for high-DPI monitors and didn't care about the others.
In order for Apple to be negligent by not tending to a matter they'd first have to have the responsibility of tending to it to begin with.
It is not my understanding that Apple has any responsibility for ensuring equal access and capabilities for third-party accessories on their own weird, proprietary, invented-in-house computing systems.
Therefore, it is also not my understanding that they can be negligent on these matters.
They broke things that used to work. They had other reasons for doing it, but they also didn't really care to fix the problems it created. Their ecosystem is somewhat isolated from regular PCs and caters to a different clientele so I'm sure it made business sense to prioritize that way. Hence, there's at least some intent involved, just not outright malice.
I can't recall ever seeing this option with the old System Preferences, so it might be new to System Settings; but either way, it's not universal. I have a 5-button Razer mouse attached to test with right now, and the "Mouse buttons" option doesn't appear in System Settings. It does, however, show up in the System Settings search results, which is nice and confusing ("here's a setting we found, that doesn't actually exist for you").
