Free version was pretty limited until this release.

Now free version is fully featured and pro version just has some team features and lack of revenue restrictions.

Now you can deploy to iPhone and Android without paying $150/month.

You could before too. You would get the Unity splashscreen at the start, but you could deploy to any platform from the free version.

is the splash removed in Unity 5 free?

Nope, it looks like it's there,looking at the list of features:

http://unity3d.com/get-unity