PCB with soldermask under uC pins: unsoldered mechanically floating pins

[Kjelt]

Hi perhaps some of you diehards have seen this before, I haven't and am greatly surprised. 

Today I opened a commercially available device that I got from a friend: a Meanwell DAP-04 protocol converter.
To my surprise 19 pins on the LPC1114F microcontroller were unsoldered.
Those pins had no pads under them just soldermask so they are totally clean and are mechanically floating above the pcb.

Why? 
The only reason I can think of is to save $0,001 on solderpaste.
The drawback is that the uC is less stable attached to the pcb, and hopefully those pins are defined as output low else if they are defined as floating input it can destroy the uC.

Has anyone seen this before and have a viable explanation why a decent manufacturer like Meanwell would do something like this ?
Sorry the picture is not better, I do not have a foto option on my stereo microscope and the macro setting on my camera would result in less detail, hope you can see it clearly.

[Kjelt]

This picture might be somewhat better.

[thm_w]

Why? 
The only reason I can think of is to save $0,001 on solderpaste.
The drawback is that the uC is less stable attached to the pcb, and hopefully those pins are defined as output low else if they are defined as floating input it can destroy the uC.

I wouldn't be too concerned about it falling off, I've never seen a TQFP pop from the board. BGA's sometimes. Also there is not much concern about floating input on a uC destroying it, even though it is best to set as output in software. If this was wave soldered, I can see they would want to do it to reduce shorts/reworks. Same could apply to reflow but would be less likely.

I've seen a few times on chinese designs, it is quite odd.

[Kjelt]

If this was wave soldered, I can see they would want to do it to reduce shorts/reworks.

Ah yes that would be a good reason, it is a mixed technology board (so also TH components).
The bottomside the smt components are all glued so could be the case.
Although they probably would be better off using each other I/O pin instead of a couple next to eachother, thereby reducing the risk even more.
Nice board though, lots of isolation slots routed.