@Hanaisse: According to the UOP changelog:
I'm not up on just how this normal map stuff works, but does that sound right to you? One would think it's the opposite and this change shouldn't have been done?
Unless I miss my guess here, if you're in a spot where all of these robes load, each one is now forced to load it's own version of the same normal map instead of only loading the one normal map.
I'll have to defer to texture experts on whether this was a silly thing to do or not.