The retention of cut-offs on Trials T's is indeed an odd thing. One could even argue that they should have been removed as early as the conversion process, let alone at FTR., yet most of the Trials T's I've seen have still had their cut-offs present, even when FTR'ed, so I wouldn't be particularly surprised about that. But I would agree, I prefer to give any rifle I am contemplating buying a close Mk1 eyeball inspection to using even the best of digital photo's.
ATB