I am not aware of any ootb way of changing the text without developing custom code as you specified in your article.
With AEM - providing custom code is required sometimes, When developing custom code - its also a developers responsibility to refactor the code to ensure it works with an updated version. Typically you need to add new dependencies, etc.
Also - the default text - Drag Components Here is not an issue for most developers - most likely why AEM Eng will not change it.