The fact that Github added an API specifically to reduce the server load from Homebrew suggests that it wasn't "just fine". One of the Homebrew maintainers works for GH so they just had a much more direct route to solving the problem than with CocoaPods.
In this case it's actually more that there's a Homebrew maintainer who works for GitHub (me) who has been working on a bunch of improvements to Homebrew's update system (in my spare time). The desire for the API came from Homebrew's side rather than GitHub's and, as it reduces load for GitHub, it was a net win for both parties.
