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"most of the circuitry is covered by the metal heat sink, held in place by yellow insulating tape."

This sounds a bit dodgy to me. Could someone with domain expertise comment on whether this is normal ?

It's normal. Actually the part mentioned that wraps around the power supply is not only a heatsink but also a shield for reducing radiated noise. PSU like this are very noisy and without (a.o.) this shield it may not be possible to get it approbated. The shield has transparent plastic foil beneath it to act as an insulator (barely visible on the first photo, but on the picture with the shield removed it's clearly visible). The usage of yellow tape is perfectly normal.

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