Correct but one November applicant sushsub received a request to submit IELTS TRF post e-APR submission.
I never mentioned applicants got rejected for not uploading IELTS TRF. Its just a good to have, that's all.
Yes, I am aware that the IRCC website mentions that you do not have to submit ECA report - however, you could do some searching on the forum and there was at least one claim that their application was refused because of missing ECA. IRCC is sometimes unpredictable - You see, for instance, back in mid 2015, the medical team at IRCC made some mistakes and (erroneously) rejected a few applicants whose medical test type was EDE <<though all the tests required for a PR medical exam -> 501, 502, 707 and 712 were all done>> (If I can recall correctly, one of the members who was affected by this was Yelena). This was later rectified - The point being, given the unpredictable nature of IRCC (sometimes), it is better to be safe than sorry.