I dunno, that feels very BSD to me. Presumably, they had a ftp utility first, and then when somebody wanted to download files over http they looked around and decided that the obvious thing to do was to add it to the existing file transfer/download program. Same as continuing to add functions to ifconfig rather than inventing a new ip tool.
Sure, if those functions added were related to configuring network interfaces, but it would be odd if someone added functions for configuring storage controllers.
Imagine using an ftp program to transfer files.
BitTorrent transfers files, so should a BT client be bolted on too? Typically the Unix philosophy has been do one thing well, not do all the things.