It makes sense for certain things to not work, such as damage tapes. That's the reason they're doing it the same on here. Now the original issue is that SOE should have just removed them from the loot tables, and they didn't, so I think at some point the team will actually remove them. As for survey tapes, I've not heard anything about them no longer working and I can't imagine why they wouldn't. Must be a bug.
The reason for this should be obvious. It makes no sense for someone to take the first box of medic and then be able to stack enough med use on their gear to use Stim D or E. If you want more healing potential you should have to go higher into Medic. When you can't spare the points you're more inclined to have a Medic or Doctor buddy tag along with you. It's just an effort to make this game more group oriented, which it isn't right now. I feel like you should have to have a buddy or two to go Krayt/NS hunting, or into Geo cave. Being able to solo what little high end content there is sort of defeats the purpose and focus of the game, which is to be community driven. But alas, it is a test server, and I'm patient for 14.1 and the future. Can't wait for more group oriented content. =)