xinetd is a powerful replacement for inetd.
xinetd has access control machanisms, extensive logging capabilities,
the ability to make services available based on time, and can place
limits on the number of servers that can be started, among other things.

xinetd has the ability to redirect TCP streams to a remote host and
port. This is useful for those of that use ip masquerading, or NAT,
and want to be able to reach your internal hosts.

xinetd also has the ability to bind specific services to specific
interfaces. This is useful when you want to make services available
for your internal network, but not the rest of the world. Or to have
a different service running on the same port, but different interfaces.