My memory isn't great (and I'm too lazy to look it up) but didn't how summons function also change? The revamp making a greater distinction between being summoned and real. So before the revamp summons could contest fonts and after they couldn't. So changing them to real was really a way of them preserving their original function rather than changing it. Though they did get upgrades as a by product.
I remember trying to get the merge mechanic changed to any three stiched, or else simply removed, since there is no way anyone would engineer a situation of three specific champs adjacent for a merge that would usually be a bad trade of three remains producers to one overpriced 2x2. If it was any three you could at least get some value from stitchlings and such and occasionally get use from it.