Just to confirm - they did have the special meals loaded (both outbound and inbound), even though all the confirmations said "no special meal offered". The asian vegetarian was OK, the gluten free was just barely adequate (at least outbound - it was much better coming back).
I don't think it's accurate that they no longer offer special meals (at least on the transatlantic routes). They had at least 10 special meals on my return flight yesterday that I saw and that was just on one side of the plane.
I suppose it's possible that they are phasing them out - if you made the request a while ago, you'll still get them but no new requests will be allowed, but it seems unlikely.