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In 802.11-2012, it began removing the PLCP-PMD interface and started referring to it as just PHY. In 802.11-2016 the acronyms PMD and PLCP appear to be removed from the standard and Layer 1 is just PHY with no sub-layers.

Is the PMD - PLCP interface still a thing even though IEEE says no but CWAP still talks about it?

They are still there.

You may have found explanations that try to "simplify" the explanations  - for the most part you don't need to understand them for a user or a wireless administrator PoV.

But from a CWAP point of view you do as some problems can be found there, especially when a layer is malfunctioning.

Manufactturers often "tinker" with the code to customize it.   Sometimes they do a good job and some times they don't.   

Even the original chip set manufacturers can ship bad updates.  Hopefully they get around to fixing them soom, unless it's part of their "secret sauce".

Some WLAN diagnostic equipment runs in "signalling" mode as opposed to "non-signalling" mode, and I have seen these have problems with non-standard (optimized ???) changes.

Don't get me wrong, IMHO signalling mode tests are superior, but customization and optimization can sometimes wreck your testing regimen.    Sometimes the only way to understand a problem is to look at it from a PLCP-PMD PoV. 

I’m actually talking about the standards. 802.11 -2106 standard. All 3000 something pages. LOL! In 2012 they began to deprecate it. In 2016 there are no are no mentions on the sub layers. In fact, the acronyms are deleted  

So that brings me to why refer to things that no longer exist?