The general consensus in this area is to leave using the disavow tool unless Google have sent you a notice regarding your linking profile.
However, Penguin is an algo, which can penalise people for their linking profiles and in this case no email gets sent out. I think this question highlights the fear that if you all of a sudden get these "bad" links or have them in your profile then you might be penalised and not know why. Because everyone runs around saying "only do it if Google told you to" then you avoid using the disavow tool and Penguin continues to own you.
So in essence, I agree with what people are saying, but there are still a bunch of unknowns here and we shouldn't all just take what Matt Cutts says as gospel (I.E. only us disavow if you've received an email). Google are getting tons of stuff wrong right now (hopefully with some Holy Grail future yet to be shown to us) and things need to become more transparent so things can be fixed.