It has never been possible to do anything but hide apps in your purchase history. Consumer law prevents Apple from allowing that option, since the software licenses you’ve paid for are issued by third party developers. It has always been that way, since the online App, iTunes and iBook stores went live.
You can request Apple delete an AppleID, which in turn deletes all purchases and data associated with the AppleID. But other than total deletion of an AppleID, your AppleID transaction history is permanent and cannot be edited selectively.