Ted,
I am extremely appreciative of your sharing your knowledge and experience. I am also appreciate of your taking personal time to gather all of this info and present it here. I don't know how you find the time as your shop must be busy.
Those vent holes showed up when the radiator tops became lower than the engine such as in the 1960-1962 model cars. For those particular vehicles and when the coolant levels dropped, air did tend to get trapped between the center cylinders forcing the need for the holes to ‘bleed’ the air from that area.
My opinion is that Fel-Pro did a disservice to the industry at large in providing instructions to drill the blocks/heads with those holes if they were not already there.
That explains why. Never knew or realized that ... 