Yes I'm very familiar with government bureaucracy and slow changes. I just don't understand why the medical requirement was ever there in the first place. The required experience level should be sufficient.
The only reason I can come up with is that someone thought that a jumpseating ASI might need to assist in the operation of a flight should either crewmember become incapacitated.
Or maybe the idea was that since they were to be in a cockpit, a medical would give some limited assurance they had no medical condition which might cause them to croak or something.