< it is a simple house cleaning issue>

I think your saying it is a screw up. Perhaps. But is it not a reasonable assumption that the USPTO is not paying people to manually create all these links to other files? I assume there is software that does it automatically. Hence, in the case of the three HTC/White & Case reexam files, someone intervened with the automated system. Would that not be the most logical and simplest explanation? Now the reason for such intervention may not be as simple to deduce, but it certainly would seem to be something out of the ordinary. IMHO.

Opty