Nothing was actually removed from the game, file wise, they're just locked for this release.
Because they're taking too long a time to get things up to speed, this release was put out as a test to show the widescreen feature, as well as the new locations. There were also a few small updates to both the Jenny and Debbie characters for people to play with.
Most probably won't bother unpacking and browsing the game files, but the entire game, plus all of the characters, save for a few, are still there, just not accessible. Characters like Ms. Dewitt aren't in the files at all for example, even though she had updated art already. And the ones that are still there like Ms. Okita, aren't represented in the files with any new art, even though work has already been done on her. There's even a new character in the files that hasn't been seen to date.
I'm also not going to pretend I understand why, but the number of file folders has expanded tremendously for almost everything. Each character now has numerous files that have divided out every single detail about them, which if actually required for this tech update, is imo, a good indication as to why it's taking so long.