This is a surprise? I think that lack of support for the PPC Mac's has been pretty well known for some time now.

I think the removal of PowerPC support is why the OS is now something like 6 or 7GB smaller than before.

The same mistake, again and again. Please read http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=747316

But it then adds in x86_64 support, which brings the size back up. The smaller files are likely to be from not installing all the resources (localizations, drivers, etc) at once if not needed.

it no longer ships with printer drivers i think - these are now supported by the software update mechanism that keeps os x up to date.

Localizations are there.