As a writer of realistic contemporary books, I often get rid of the parents because otherwise it'd seem wrong not to have the protagonist thinking about or phoning the parents during a crisis. Killing them off, making them estranged from their children, putting them on a world trip for a year or a month-long cruise, any of that will work.
Siblings are far easier to work in, but just as often I make MCs only children. If there's a parent, and the plot begins "husband cheated on MC and gambled away their savings and their home is being repossessed by the bank and omg what will she do now?" and the answer is, "Easy--pack the car, drive 100 miles, and move back in with her parents while she gets her feet back under her," there's no book.
You are correct that the "foundling" is a very ancient element of plot. I have some ideas about why it appeals to both storytellers and audiences.
First, discovery is a good theme. You can't have much discovery if the character has everything handed to him. Of course, there often is a wise old sage who may give hints from time to time (and may know more about the character's origins than is revealed at first), but the sage does not lay everything out as a parent might.
2) One of the discoveries is the character finding his place in the world. The truth is, even in societies which think they are classless or that people have opportunities from much improvement, most people really do not have the ability or opportunity to improve their station in life. Audiences are "most people." So audiences like to fantasize about being free to rise above their stations. And parents would just be dead weight on that.
3) Brighter people, of course, realize they are surrounded by idiots, and that includes parents. They like to imagine a world in which they could really advance according to their abilities.
4) Most people, at least at one time or another, become disaffected with the kind of they are doomed to live by having the parents they have. For this reason, many people entertain the possibility that they are really foundling and not related to the people around them. The foundling hero fits into this fantasy. One of the reasons The Jerk is a jerk is that he is a foundling, but does not realize it.
5) This leads pretty easily to some plot variants. If you don't have a place in the world, you are always a "fish out of water," and you are very likely to partner up with someone who is a mismatch, and so forth.
This plot may have been discovered in ancient days when a woman would have to explain the presence of an infant to her husband who had been away for a long period of time. That explanation would be that the infant was the child of a god, so the woman could not be blaimed, and the husband would not have to fear a mortal rival. On the other hand, when a common person did against all odds rise to a high station through wit, strength or chance, that would tend to make his fellows jealous ("He's not so great. I went to school with him.) So the explanation would be that the great person really was the child of a god and so was destine for great things to begin with. And there is the switcheroo on that, a la Star Wars, the person was the child of a great villian.
If you are middle-class guy whose most likely career path is that you will grow up to sell life insurance to your fraternity brothers, you are really going to be a sucker for this kind of plot whether you are reading it or writing it.
Because such stories are fairy tales, written for children. Look at the list of materials you gave, while adults might read them, they're written for children primarily.
A child's most basic fear is losing a parent, so having the child be an orphan immediately puts them on edge by eliminating "why don't they just ask their Mommy to help" from their minds.
Orphans are more than just symbols of pity, they are also symbols of infinite possibilities: An orphan could be anyone from just a poor orphan of an unmarried mother to a lost prince or princess or an alien hybrid like in "Escape To Witch Mountain". They could have special powers, royal blood, or be heirs to a lost fortune. Infinite possibilty recommends itself to the reader's imagination.
Fighting adversity equals strength of character.
I find it in my own writing. Many of the protagonists are one-eyed or walk with a limp - mainly war wounds. <
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