Re: release notes and process improvements. Is there something that can or should collate the point release release notes together with the RCs? If one goes to https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/releases/tag/release_2.17.1 to learn "what changed since 2.17.0" the text is not informative on it's own.

Agreed! I filed https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/issues/20173