The Shortest Genome Sequence Paper!

The JGI Los Alamos National Lab has just published one of the shortest (if not the shortest) genome sequence paper. The paper is published online ahead of print in the Journal of Bacteriology and report on the genome sequence of Bacillus thuringiensis Al Hakam, a strain isolated in Iraq by the United Nation Special Commission. The author list is about 1 and 1/2 pages and the text not much longer. This paper was published with the sole intention to announce the release of the sequence in GenBank. There is no science beside the fact that the cry, cyt and vip genes (toxins genes) were not found, did you need the genome for get to that conclusion?
Is this where the future of genome sequence papers is heading? Announcements for GenBank Release. I'm not sure if I like this.

We are now sequencing several strains of the same species and I think it can become somewhat of a problem because some of the sequences turn out to not be very informative. But are we selecting the strain to sequence rationally? A lot of work goes into sequencing, assembling, closing, annotating and analyzing a genome. If nothing novel or interesting comes out of this, that is a lot time and effort wasted without returns for the people involved in terms of papers. I think this work should still be published. I had suggested a while back to convince a journal (PLoS?) to have one issue (or part of) or one section in each issue dedicated to genome sequences, just like NAR does for databases. I think these types of paper would fit better in that context. As a standalone paper in the middle of a new issue of the Journal of Bacteriology might not be the best use of journal pages. What about a community page, just like in PLoS Biology? Wouldn't it be a better format? I think it is important to recognize the work that has gone into sequencing and analysis a genome, but what is the best format? Genome sequences are still very important resources that the scientific community uses. Are we getting to the point where a genome sequence is to be released into GenBank and does not warrant a publication unless its analysis advances scientific knowledge? Just what happened to gene sequences not that long ago!