I'm curious what in particular brought on the changes?
They're a long time in coming, particularly the breaking of Sirion's defensive wall. We also knew that the islands were just too poor to be viable as anything but a realm of outcasts, which doesn't make for good gameplay.
I'd been working on a few different versions of a modified EC for a little while, after asking Rowan on Discord to put together some mockups (the majority of the change in overall design can be credited to him, though I mixed and matched from his versions), but was concerned over possible backlash, primarily from Sirion and Nivemus. Then, when they pulled that stunt in Commonyr, I decided I didn't care what Sirion and Nivemus thought; I was going to do what I knew was best for the continent as a whole.
