However, it has been noted before that the original one does not match reality, at least in most cases.
viewtopic.php?p=76989#p77279
has the lid off on a ESP-12E and shows quite a lot of small passives around that area and as the thread notes it does seem to have both pull up and capacitor.
This does accord with my experience of batches of ESP-12Fs from about 10 different vendors, mainly labeled as AI-Thinker modules where so far they have all included these components.