> Huh? No, the MAC was never a part of the publicly-visible v6 address.

Yes, it was: https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3513/#section-2.5.4

The 64/64-bit split was in fact a result of (then planned) Bluetooth having 64 bit MACs. Moreover, the initial IPv6 RFCs did not have privacy extensions for SLAAC: https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2464/#section-4

> Even sending packets to link-local addresses still does NDP, rather than parse the MAC out of the address.

It doesn't.