PR #27269 enables the function address_to_scriptpubkey() to decode all address types and return their corresponding scriptpubkeys. As a result, there is no longer any need to call getaddressinfo or validateaddress RPCs in order to retrieve an address scriptpubkey, as explained in the comments on this pull request (see #27269#pullrequestreview-1353681933 and #27269 (comment)).
Instead of using RPC calls, this update replaces the process of obtaining an address scriptPubkey with the address_to_scriptpubkey method, resulting in improved performance for functional tests.