Well, we're doing these repos to get the ppa version of node, which may be the only package we're installing from this set of PPAs (I'm not sure). Now, if you're not running the ppa version of node in your prod, clearly it's not important that we do either. But it makes me skittish that something is documented as a 'requirement' that's actually not.

If you want to pull it out, go ahead - we can stick it back in on our side if we need it. I have a mild preference for seeing this turned into a positive change rather than a negative one. That is, if you're going to say these repos aren't necessary, let's actually have a play that asserts that they be absent rather than simply not adding them.  Then sometime in the future we can drop those plays.