This issue is still occurring for certain passive mobs like the killer bunny. Status effects such as negative strength, or changes to generic attack damage have no effect on how much damage the mob does. This is easily reproduceable in 1.21. Here's a command:
/summon rabbit ~ ~ ~ {Health:15f,RabbitType:99,Tags:["boss1"],active_effects:[{id:"minecraft:strength",amplifier:-2,duration:10000}],attributes:[{id:"minecraft:generic.attack_damage",base:1},{id:"minecraft:generic.max_health",base:15}]}
Regardless of what values you choose, generic attack damage cannot be set or modified.
Coming from issue MC-73411, this is very much still an issue in 1.20.1, and no amount of finagling seems to be able to bypass it. Even once the mob exists, you still cannot modify the base attack damage of the rabbit with a /data modify or merge, and weakness potions etc. have no effect.
Data merge for reference:
/data merge entity @e[type=rabbit] {ActiveEffects:[
{Id:18,Amplifier:100b,Duration:2000,ShowParticles:1b}
]}
/data modify entity @e[type=rabbit,limit=1] Attributes[
{Name:"generic.attack_damage"}].Base set value 1
Both of these commands "work", and particle effects will be applied, but the attack damage stays the same.
I also consistently get this issue, and have for years. I cannot and have never been able to sign into my feedback account properly, and at this point it feels intentional to keep people from providing feedback.