Both are not mutually exclusive. His leaving may be why they changed track. However that is not why they are harping these reverts as new features/innovation.
Marketing releases talking about “innovation” are equivalent to protestations of innocence before a criminal court; you should ignore it because everyone is motivated to claim the same thing regardless of whether it’s true or not. Doesn’t mean it’s always true or always false, sometimes real innovation occurs, but taken alone it provides no useful information.
The pitch in the event was basically "we're giving pros what they want".