I'm only going by what the devs have actually told me, not what you think is right or wrong. =)
They do not like us sharing their asset files. Period. It's one of the reasons I wanted Xtra to switch to this method of editing textures; the reason Sphereii has been patching .asset files... the reason for a LOT of the modding changes you're only seeing the end result of.
The time will come when they start shutting certain mods down.
And you're comparing apples to orangutans. Sharing the model that the developers created and the game uses is entirely different than sharing the end result of the usage of those models.
You can argue it, but I won't be participating. Take it up with the development team.
Like you said, they're easy enough to extract, just go ahead and do it, or talk someone into giving them to you in PM.