I'm not sure exactly why these packages were removed, unless for an upgrade. But this current installation of elementary OS that I'm running was finally installed after 2 failed attempts where grub wouldn't install to /dev/sda (I finally went to the live desktop on the USB and installed from the desktop).
So, I'm not sure if I should be worried about this, because the computer is running fine, but it's just more out of curiosity as to why these packages were removed during installation. I was also connected to the Internet at the time to update packages.
