I'm not sure I followed your argument fully. My Plus shipped with 6.0.3 (maybe 6.0.2); it ran fine on that non-superdrive-equipped compact. That Apple still provides 800K images says a lot. It seems too harsh to say that they have abandoned IWM-based Macs.

I do agree that not supporting the 128K is unfortunate. Not only do they not offer a compatible system for download, they shut down the few sites that did. Understandable, perhaps, from a legal perspective, but we're hobbyists. That said, Apple is to be commended for generously offering any of these downloads (and for free). I can't quite bring myself to criticize them for not being still more generous.