@Houstonlively

Yes, obviously the patch IS the list. No argument there. But the point I'm making is that it's standard in software development (as I've seen in other product upgrades) to provide a separate detailed list of affected or added files and database tables. It's not hard to do if it's done as items are updated. Yes, we can all trawl through the patch to see folder by folder, file by file what files are included...and then do the same for the database. But that's not necessary if see more a consolidated and simplified list was initially provided. There's many advantages to having such list. For one, it says us time by allowing us to directly compare with our list of modded files so we may start to work on necessary files, and it keeps us from possibly missing a file or database item. Furthermore, the list isn't necessarily a long list depending on the amount of upgrades with the delivery.

I guess you just have not directly experienced the benefits of such list. See other arguments from Deano and DM. You'll see I mean:
http://www.boonex.com/unity/forums/#topic/List-of-files-db-affected-by-patch-upgrade.htm