The OpenWrt Firmware Selector

for the past 2 days, i can onlu build snapshot images if I explicitly omit the luci package from firmwre selector. but i can add luci-app-X packages - and the image has luci installed, even though it is not listed as a discrete package.
similalry, to use owut to upgrade, i need to use -r luci
has there been a change in strategy to bundle luci functionality into the base image, or is ther some imagebuilder weirdness happening?