Is there any reason /etc/issue from current baselayout contains \t? It won't show the current time but only the time agetty was last started, so IMHO it serves no useful purpose and only shows the last logout time.
Which is as done by older distro/some bsd's. I see no need to change it, and if you need it you side, CONFIG_PROTECT should keep your changes.
But what is the use of this? I can't think of any situation in which that info would be really useful, why should I want to see the time the getty was last started? IMHO quite a few people are going to wonder why the clock isn't ticking. And if somebody really wants/needs that, he can add it, not need to make it the default. Of course this is not my decision to make, but I really don't see the use of this, sorry.