All you wrote is correct. However that was the case for many-many years: the iso files were there. The jigdo approach does not work either, the files themselves are missing and the jigdo binary reports it.As for the "most people would not need them anyway" stance, i agree but that was true all the previous years as well, not to mention that all this almost defeats the purpose of an iso archive all together.
For education, testing, archiving purposes, the iso file should be there - that is my opinion of course. What "scared" me and made me think that i should ask a bit, is the face that i saw no announcement about it - like an accident has taken place, or worse.
Panos