I realised I produced these two renders with with Motion blur turned off, which actually now makes sense for a sim produced in world space. So as far as my original issue goes, please set that as user error.
However, before I realised that was user error, I simmed the smoke at the origin in local space with no movement, then linked the volume grid to the geo, so that it moves along with it, and when I did a test render, I got exactly the same results as it it was simmed in world space with no links.
I would actually expect a volume grid that is being translated somehow (linked, animated, etc.) to still have correct transformation blur, even if the motion blur setting on the volume grid option is turned off. But it seems that when motion blur is turned off on the volume object, it kills all forms of movement. If you are chalking this up to 'as designed', then my recommendation for a feature request would be to add an option (a checkbox?) to allow object transformation blur, even if the velocity blur is turned off.