Yes, vsftpd works on the same old ftp protocol and supports both active and passive modes. But, it's really tightly secured. That's why the name "Very Secure FTP daemon" :D
True, xinetd is not that much used now a days. But it sure does a good job of make the system resources available for other use. For an example, a PXE server serving TFTP requests. Now, do you really...