Well yeah, some mini-usb combos were removed from the standard so in that sense it's not _now_ allowed by the standards..

As for powering a device via micro-USB: EU or someone forced the phone makers to agree on a common power charging standard. For some reason micro-USB was chosen as the plug to use. Well, anything is better than charging via an unreliable multi-connector, as most of them do, and presumably none of the others wanted to move to a "Nokia" connector, so micro-USB it is. Now, does that mean that because micro-USB is used as a power plug, _all_ USB handling has to go through it, with the limits the charging functionality causes? An additional mini-USB would, in this case, have been better. But that's not even in the standard anymore, according to e.g. the link I posted a couple of postings above (or even _allowed_, according to your quote.)

Of course the whole insane mess is only due to the USB consortium. OTG, host mode, etc. etc. --- none of that would be needed at all if the standard had been sane. Instead we're stuck with this rubbish.