Same here! I noticed that last night. Also the subfolders don't work (x86/x64 etc). The Windows 7 repository etc work fine though.
That's right, and I suspect the new DISM removal feature doesn't deal with different KB's either. The disk cleanup route may or may not deal with different KB's (not sure on this), but it looks like it doesn't remove them either, only compresses them. The reason behind this is if you remove the newer update, the old update can become active in its place instead of going back to the original files. In other words, it adds a layer of redundancy of sorts. For standard users this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but due to the hotfix repository for us it is completely unnecessary.
For us, pretty much never, but for businesses and some home users it may beneficial if they are having issues with the newer update.
Microsoft are clearly aware that this has been a troublesome update for many, I see the MS Tech guy is still asking ppl to post their logs so he can look through them. Maybe there'll be another fix to get KB2756872 installed - who knows. Hope you get it resolved, I know this update has been frustrating!
I gave up and did a clean install. Then I got all the updates from Microsoft and they all installed without any problems.