From where does Adobe get money from Flash? It isn't through the Flash Player plugins (which are already free), but it does get money from tools that create Flash content. So why wouldn't it make sense for Adobe to have made a move like this?
It actually still makes them money. The Flash authoring environment is still one of the more popular methods of doing production-quality animation. See http://coldhardflash.com for lots of examples.
The Flash authoring environment is the best vector graphics editor I've used, even without the animation and scripting on top. They're still going to continue that, even if the Flash Player plugin is a bit behind.