Regretfully, I don't see an easy way to point to the mailing list archives for the discussion either, because there have been several (many, as far as I can tell) discussions, but perhaps the list of archived proposals would give Daniel a certain overview of what's been going on in the past years, as well as access to the assessments of each policy proposal. It's a huge task to go through these, to be sure, but I think it's necessary when Daniel wants to change the policy that he's at least familiar with the past 4-5 years' worth of policy proposals did and didn't evolve into the current policy.

Archived proposals:

https://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/archived-policy-proposals/archive-policy-proposals/

Current proposals:

https://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/current-proposals/current-policy-proposals

A few examples that may be relevant to Daniel's concern:

There is, of course, "Allocations from the last /8" from 2010 (before my time):

The "run out fairly" policy:

There is the policy proposal about PI assignments from the last /8, which was withdrawn:

https://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2012-04

(Discussions: https://www.google.no/search?q=address-policy-wg+archives+PI+Assignments+from+the+last+%2F8)

There is the proposal about removing the requirement for a minimum allocation size:

https://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2014-01

Also the post-depletion adjustment to the policy, which also saw some relevant discussion, particularly concerning "need", which I think bears some relevance to Daniel's arguments about how to tell whether someone should get an additional /24:

There are other proposals which may be relevant, the above are just examples.

I would wish that each proposal had links to archived discussion threads, but that's just wishful thinking now – Google is our friend in finding these old discussions, based on e.g. the policy text title and key phrases in the policy change text.