hmmm.........i can't answer this as a reviewer but i can explain it as an architect as to why it's not needed to be attached. there is no lateral load on an interior beam unless it is applied by an outside force. this being said, all load is vertical and the weight of the house holds everything down and the beam holds everything up. but everyone knows this already. the need to attach a 2x4 to the top of a steel beam to provide lateral support does not make sense. what is it going to do? the bolting of a sill on an exterior wall is another animal all together. the sill plate of a wall is parallel to the supporting structure and perpendicular to outside forces. bolting helps prevent wind/seismic from push one support system off the other into the abyss. this is not the case with an interior beam where loads are vertical and the structure cannot fall off it's base without serious serious effort, and in this case, that means there is something else at work that would trump any concerns of lateral stability of a single beam. beams aren't supposed to move and that's how they are designed..........so..........
all attaching the sill plate to the beam does is impart a Moment at the top of the beam while allowing the bottom to be free to rotate, doing this is not technically lateral bracing. actually attaching to the beam could/would impart forces not designed for that situatation such as wood shrinkage and expansion from being open to the weather during construction. this movement could damage exterior walls and foundations before it's even occuppied(seen this first hand with tightly bolted sill plates a whole other story)
i did a thought experiment and here it goes...(beam in regular house no special seismic conditions)... to allow the floor joist to float on the beam allows for small movement which occurs inside a structure. how far does that beam have to go before the sill plate falls off the top of the beam and the structure drops 1 1/2"? once that has happened....how much further does the beam have to move to get past the ends of the overlapped floor joist? this would be a pretty big load on the side of that beam and highly unusual without the house moving.
say the beam doesn't move but the house does, the outside force needed to push the building sideways by 1-2 feet to overturn a beam or to push the joist past its splice is incredible wouldn't ya say? are we to suggest that the difference between structural soundness and unacceptable lies with a 2x4 bolted to a steel beam. i don't think there is. even if we are in some sort of high wind area and calculating suction upon the structure, is a 2x4bolted to the beam going to be the difference between holding a building down and it flying away. answer, no....not to mention, this is technically not what a beam is designed for i.e dead weight.
............but most important is you NEVER, ever ever ever instruct someone to drill through, weld to or alter the flange of a steel beam ever ever ever!!!!! i mean seriously! the trouble someone went through to spec a specific beam and you go and have some yahoo go drilling holes throught it! big big mistake....if you want a lawsuit on your, , PE's, my, the contractors hands.......let em poke as many random holes in that thing as you want. as an architect we spec a simple beam, the contractor goes and buys that beam and they can cut the ends off, but that's it! flanges are for holes and only designed by a professional.
please please....if you decide that removing valuable material from the compression zone of a steel beam (to keep it in place laterally) is more important than the material is for it's intended purpose, go right ahead, but you've been warned. if there are holes in it, it better have an engineer design it and it would be in their best interest to have it manufactured by them and not done in the field. other wise, let it sit on the beam because if it wasn't designed for lateral stability , then lateral bracing is not required and as i've stated above, could be dangerous if done incorrectly.
as for the engineer's comment, he should have known better than to say that to a reviewer!