LS,

Has there been an official answer to the request of having blending modes option back?

It seems such a reasonable request and it would satisfy a lot of users, so...

Why isn't it there?

There never has been a blending modes effect as far as I recall, if that's what you mean - although there have been several requests in the past for it.  There was once a third party effect that gave blending modes, but that's long gone.  It really isn't hard to achieve - the algorithms are in the public domain.

Exhasperated sigh; Just one of many posts, this one only a mere 12 years ago:

http://community.avid.com/forums/p/47136/265738.aspx

Blending modes was one of the features listed on the NAB 2017 slide as "under investigation". I have no idea what that means, and couldn't find a 2018 version of the slide. Maybe one of the ACA people knows.

It's in the ACA question list for 'features you'd most like to see'... so there's that.

do yourself a favor since its been asked for since the 90's. Take 300 dollars and buy the BCC package that includes it. I think its part of the "Keying" bundle and the effect is aptly titled "Composite". Otherwise you'll be asking forever. 

The real reason we arent getting it is because of Avids longtime partnership with Boris. If Avid made their own effects why would anyone pay the money for Boris or Sapphire? See how that works? 

I'm just trying a free plugin now called Blend-X. Seems to work ok:

http://djfio.com/blend/

As I've said in this and other threads on the same topic, it really isn't a serious challenge to do.  I've written over 200 effects for another NLE, and implementing these is the trivial part of the exercise.  The algorithms are in the public domain, and implementation usually requires just a line or two of code for each.  I can't understand what's to "investigate" about producing them.

Now that Blend-X is available perhaps the next thing to look at would be boolean operations...