No, Critique existed before the quick edit feature was added to Code Search.
While I think the quick edits were worthwhile, it became too much too support both it and Cider (and edits in Critique), so it was removed to streamline things. As Cider became better, I think it was an okay trade-off.
However, experience with it led to my sense that Python just doesn't scale (especially back then, without type annotations) past a certain size of program.
The Code Search team had been re-inventing its UI and changing a lot (changing its focus from external to internal), and had the inspiration to leverage what they'd done to create Critique. They sold Mountain View on it, and made history. Exciting times.
I was the eng manager for that for a bit, added some APIs to use to do code reviews inside of Eclipse or IntelliJ. That idea never took on, but when when I showed it to the code search team in Munich, they loved it.
No I mean that in code search you could click "edit" and just change something, which would then post a CL immediately, which you could set to auto-approve, for quick changes.
I believe it was part of cider (the first non-vscode version)
The first version was part of Code Search proper, and wasn't super useful for much more than just typo fixes, since it was essentially just a textarea edit box. That was eventually deprecated and replaced with a button that did the same thing, but opened in Cider instead.
While I think the quick edits were worthwhile, it became too much too support both it and Cider (and edits in Critique), so it was removed to streamline things. As Cider became better, I think it was an okay trade-off.