This makes sense, I see now that you can disable it. But was this even an option before Apple published the "selfsolve" page referenced here in today's news?

I haven't seen any articles that suggest you should disable iMessage unless you are dropping your iPhone completely. It was totally not obvious to me that you can even do this, and I am professional. ^_^ (I don't have my own iPhone, so I've never had to wrangle with these issues on my own.)