There were trackers before github for sure-- but like it's a pretty ordinary setup to make issues private to project members until triaged... that sort of thing pretty much kills brigading dead and it's a thing you can't do on github.

There is a continuum between totally private and what github provides, with self hosted tools you could hit a number of different spots on that spectrum. Cynically one reason for the lack of flexibility is that the maximally permissive side is probably better for the expansion of Github's business.