Mail no longer returned after 30 days?

Hi there. Several guildmates of mine have run afoul of what I believe was an undocumented change to the way the in-game mail system works, and I'm wondering what (if anything) can be done. Here's the situation:

The way things *used* to work, you could mail an item to a player, and if that mail was unopened, it would be returned to the sender after 30 days. I personally had used that feature countless times, as it allowed for quick and easy "storage" of materials in my alt's inboxes. Several of my guildmates did the exact same thing.

Now, it apparenty seems, mail is no longer returned after that 30 day window has expired. I'm *not* talking about a situation where mail was returned and then sat unopened for a second 30 days and was deleted, I *am* talking about someone sending mail, having it remain unopened, and having that mail NOT returned to the sender at all, and simply deleted. One guildmate lost countless stacks of pretty much every type of leather imaginable, and another guildmate lost all his prepped materials for the engineering mount in 2.3, both of which had simply sent them to alt's inboxes for "storage". I myself think I have also lost many stacks of leather, though I honestly don't recall how many (if any), and I'm not overly concerned about my personal loss.

What *does* concern me is that this was a commonly used mechanic, and it's apparent change (I'm guessing with 2.1.3's 3-day-to-30-day extension for unread mail?) has probably caused the deletion of thousands of in-game mails that people were expecting to be returned. There was no warning this would occur. The loss of all these items is bound to make for some very angry players once this change becomes more widely known.

Both of my guildmates contacted GMs in-game. They were told that the mails were in fact deleted and would not be restored. And that is currently the "final word," as far as I know.

So, I ask the question here -- was this a deliberate change? If so, why was it not announced so that people could adjust their behaviors? If not, I'll go report it in the bug forums. And in either case -- why is the current stance of the GMs that the items will not be restored, when players were basing their actions on a mail mechanic that had worked for easily over a year prior?

Thanks for your time.