I did buy all lenses except one in China (one was bought in Singapore). I checked the (import/manufacturing?) dates on the boxes of the non-L lenses I bought so far;
EF28 1.8 2011-08-31 Hood+case included
EF50 1.4 2010-03-24 NOT included
EF85 1.8 2011-10-19 Hood+case included
EFS10-22 2010-11-08 Hood+case included
A friend who also got his 50 1.4 here in China, sometime in August last year I think, DID get a hood with it.
The store I usually buy at is close to my office, so I just popped by to check and noticed that all non-L lenses do come with a hood nowadays.
So it does seem to confirm that this is a regional thing (and perhaps even limited to China, Singapore and selected markets) that was implemented sometime between April and August 2010. So a fairly new change.
It will be interesting to see if this is going to change on other markets as well in the future.