That's likely because the amended returns were filed within 3 years of the original return filing, making the amended returns processable. The problem, though is that while the amendments would be good to increase tax they would not be good to get a refund of any tax paid for that year due to the look back rule you mentioned. So I would expect that the IRS would process the amended return and then respond that no refund will be paid due to the application of that lookback rule. This assumes that the amended returns were considered complete when filed. If they were not considered complete due to the failure to have the 1040 attached then the amended returns may not even have been processable.
The bottom line is that unless there was tax paid for 2014 within the 2 year period immediately preceding the date the amended return was filed the OP won't get any refund from the amended returns. In that case, I agree that:

