Why was XEP-0398 support removed from the official releases?

I don’t think XEP-0398 support was ever included in 5.0 releases. It is scheduled to be included in 5.1.0.

We’ve had a very similar discussion in Avatar compatibility issue between XEP-0084 and XEP-0153 in Openfire Community 5.0.3 - I’ll close this forum thread in favor of that.