I agree entirely with the sentiments that you express. But I was really looking for confirmation - perhaps from someone who has inspected the release level immediately after installation had completed. I'm rather surprised that MS don't provide the information somewhere.

I ordered the backup DVD recently (January 2014), and I might have thought it equally illogical for MS to provide back level code on the DVD. But all I got was the RTM level of code, which dates back to October 2012.