On jQM 1.3.2 and 1.4 Beta 1, the scenario
with and without transition is the same. First page is always present in DOM as well as active page. Any other visited page is removed on
pagehide.
I used $.mobile.page.prototype.options.addBackBtn = true; it worked well when using Anchors to navigate.
However, when using $.mobile.changePage("page.html") (1.3.2) and
$(":mobile-pagecontainer").pagecontainer("change", "page.html") (1.4 Beta), back button didn't perform, as you have mentioned in your post.
It looks like changePage isn't updating URL history. I need to investigate more on this issue.