In Leo's book, pg 63, he shows a nice spread of 292 head gaskets. Two of them have little steam holes between cyls 2-3 and 4-5, the others do not.

On my 292 that is going back into a car after sitting on the back porch for 3 long rainy winters, the old gasket does not have these holes, and neither does the new one I have.
Are they needed?
Do they cool better?
Should I add them or just skip it?
TIA

Does your block and head have a corresponding hole to match the gasket. If so, it should probably be used.

CNC,
Good point.
No steam holes in the block (Nov 1976) or head ("104" Mexico head).

Any idea why the steam holes were in there or why they were deleted later?

Deuce, unless some early block and/or head combo had the holes in them to require the use of that gasket, that would be the only reason I could think of. That would likely be a good question for Tom Langdon. He was a GM engineer working on the inline engine division for over 30 years, so im sure he would know any reason that gasket was made available.