I have ~10 FreeBSD 11 servers which I have compiled WITH_HESIOD=true and maintain updated from source. I am shortly planning to installing another 30 or so the same way. I would _greatly_ appreciate it if -RELEASE could be compiled WITH_HESIOD=true so I could avoid doing this for much longer. Additionally, the man pages for nsswitch.conf indicate that it will work out of the box, but doesn't unless you build base with WITH_HESIOD=true. Pretty please :) I'm happy to facilitate this in whatever way possible.
This is not an re@ issue. FreeBSD releases are built with the default options, on or off. In order to have HESIOD enabled by default, the best course of action is to contact the committer(s) that implemented the feature and request they turn it on by default, or inquire why it is not enabled by default. Note: I have no insight into the implications, application-side or otherwise, of enabling the option by default.