For the routes going BOB on the red-eyes, I wonder how many pax will really notice. The calculation is probably that the time between dinner and breakfast is the longest stretch most people go without eating in a normal day anyway, and if a lot of pax are falling asleep fairly quickly the food wastage must be pretty high. For the all-BOB shorter routes, I'd guess they figure they don't need to compete with LCCs by offering free food because CX offers much better connection options especially to North America.
Having lived with BOB on BA for a while now, the reality is that for all the complaining on FT, it doesn't matter. I hear a fair amount of grumbling among nearby pax when they discover they need to pay for things, but people keep booking when the long-haul connecting prices and schedules are competitive, or when BA's hub dominance in a major financial center makes its O/D scheduling ex-LHR the most competitive on shorthaul routes.