I like to know exactly why I'm updating my database before I apply any patches. I doubt they could have been sufficiently light on the details, while still giving admins enough information to decide whether or not to upgrade.

"Apply this patch, don't worry what it does, just do it" is not something I want to hear from my database vendor :-)

Had the repos remained public, this detailed information would have been available to a lot more people, a lot sooner. Temporarily "going dark" to work on the patch seems like an acceptable compromise.