Not really uncommon, particularly on the pre-FL cars, not really a loss either as wasnt even very good when new and just dates cars when ages, may not have even been an option on the early kiwi cars.
NZ 130s being lower speced than japanese is nonsense There are literally only 32 of them, 13 manuals, most got xenons etc. The only true poverty pack one Ive seen is one thats now a race car, was a red 2005, looked to be first one in the country - Manual/Non M/Halogen lights/no options etc... kinda gave the impression it was imported to be a race car.