I haven't been monitoring the mailing list but I noticed a lot of new
changes to package.el. One is that now the generated *-autoloads.el file
doesn't contain (provides 'pkg-autoloads).  Was this something that was
intentional or something that got lost along the way.

I like having this because it allows me to use (eval-after-load
'pkg-autoloads ...) in my init.el and only conditionally evaluate code when
a package is actually installed. I realize I can now use (when
(package-installed-p 'pkg) ..) now but the nice thing about the
`eval-after-load` is that it evaluates when I install the package from
list-packages.

If it is an optimization for load time I am happy to work around it but if
it was unintended I can file a bug and maybe we can get it back.