Sorry for the typos... Here is the corrected comment reply:

I don't have a specific dicussion about this, it was mostly in changeset comments which I did not track. People started by adding the separated paths at each intersection where there was a concrete separation and then merged to the road in-between but it created a mess so we decided to just put a separated way all along. Personaly, I don't really care if it is separated or not, but when not, the road cycleway tags must be precise and complete. However, someone will redraw it back as this has been the case in the recent years, so I think we should keep them separated to reduce back and fourth changes. It says in the official wiki that in the US, it is usual to map the cycleway separated even when there are only flexposts as separators. If you look on the cycleway:track page, it says that it can alternatively be drawned separately, and track can be used when the separation is only a parking lane which is the case for most REV tracks:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:cycleway%3Dtrack
Considering all this, I don't see the problem here, since the REV is built as a separate, protected lane anyway.