Hey,
Because they feel it is too deep and complex to just add into the starting a game process, and they feel that players don't want to click as much, they moved it solely to the modding arena. If you hunt around the mods area you'll find some custom made tools that should sort out the xml stuff for you, though many are in their infancy. I'll list some posts for you below.
https://forums.elementalgame.com/390184 - Murteas' Faction Editor (I suggest you use this, it's very simple and also quite good)
https://forums.elementalgame.com/389940 - Nitey47's Custom Faction Creation guide (goes through xml and everything you need to do, also very useful)
Hope this helps you!
Paradoxical
