I'm not reading into it. I literally remember reading articles about this (i'm a reddit bicycling mod so i see a lot) in like... i dunno, like 2010-ish?

The best i could do to verify is this article about fake knockoffs from 2015: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/a20045553/to-catch-a-co...

I'm shocked that i can't find an old article about when they announced the change. Maybe my memory is wrong, and it could be, but I remember the local bike shop as being one of the main reasons for the change, even if that was just marketing.