Is this a performance concern?  I'm not sure if any of these functions are called repeatedly, but if so, a wrapper might cause a noticeable slowdown.  If not, then I agree it's fine to keep until the next version, but can you add a ``#TODO: remove in next version`` ? That will help us remember to remove these things.

Also, you might instead just issue a warning using `astropy.utils.exceptions.AstropyBackwardsIncompatibleChangeWarning`.  That's what we've used in other places like this when names have changed and the like.