?
Release are used to move packages through a specific pipeline, so you can't really have one with out another unless we realllly change our model. Of course in some scenarios, like the one you described, it feels like an unecessary step.
We've considered making a simplified "create release/package", where you can do both in one step... but it's deceptively complex to do that on a single page... and have it behave in the same manner. There are permissions to consider, release templates, legacy variables, etc... >.<