Pages thumbnails not working as expected

The default template selection in Pages is for its word processing document. There is no thumbnail page movement, or removal in this mode. In the optional page layout document format, each thumbnail is independent of another, represents both a section and a page, and one can drag thumbnails around to change the content flow, as well as remove entire pages with the thumbnail contextual menu.

Two blank Pages template icons are shown below and I have annotated what they represent:

Click, drag, and release is the only means of accurately rearranging thumbnails in a page layout document. If you copy or cut a thumbnail and select another thumbnail, a paste operation creates the new thumbnail after the selected thumbnail, rather in the selected, and possibly blank thumbnail.