Glad I could help. I am always reading yours and Coastal's threads, but I know so little about the cars that I can rarely contribute.
So I have been thinking more about why someone would do what you found. I have two theories.
1) They simply didn't have access to bolts of the correct length, so they used the standoffs to maintain pressure with incorrectly sized bolts.
2) The lower pin of the timing chain tensioner rail is down there somewhere. And to pull that pin, you have to create some sort of puller. I wonder if those standoffs were used as part of this puller. See post 31 of this thread:
9 degrees of chain stretch
I am having trouble matching everything up between your photos and the photos in that chain stretch thread, but it was just an idea I wanted to mention.