I totally agree with your last statement. It's a total non-issue.
I am a music producer and session musician myself so I can hear a song and basically tell how it was made.
Also...if you are hiring Max Martin to produce your album, what you are actually doing is hiring Max Martin to write your album. That dude is a pop music genius. Maybe it's artist 10%, Martin 90%. Since she did 1989, TS albums sound more and more like something done by a producer on his laptop rather than singer/songwriter. "Producer" in modern terms means "creator", it's not the same as back in the day when the producer was there to keep the ship on course and get the band to finish on time with songs that the band has written.
None of those are criticism, BTW..it's just the way things are done. Same with backing tracks. I think it's fine, and basically you have to do it in certain genres of music. If fans come to the show and hear stripped down "live band" versions of super produced songs they will be disappointed. I don't think it's bad or wrong, but it also doesn't interest me in the slightest no matter how good the show is.
The more I have thought about it, I think Dave's comment was a bit crappy.
Unless, of course, they talked about it beforehand and laid out this plan for publicity. Wouldn't shock me at all....this kind of stuff is done all the time for the publicity...and one thing TS is VERY good at is staying in the public eye.