To me it's just another example of the elite group of whiners who get what they want changed in this game.
Have you any proof for that?
About all things in game are being whined about, so you can throw "HT bowed to the whiners" at almost any change in game.
If HTC really would succumb to whining, we would had
- no arena caps
- a changed collision model
- Spit 16 and La 7 perked
because the "whines" about them outnumbered the NOE whines by several magnitudes.
Most noe missions succeed solely because very few up to defend.
And why is it that way? Most players are not sitting in tower all the time, watching the map. You just can't instantly jump here and there. Especially not if you are severely outnumbered and the enemy is launching NOEs in rapid succession in different parts of the map with 20+ pilots each.
And that is what probably caused the changes - "abuse" of that feature. NOEs are fun to fly and (for me) often fun to defend again... they can break a stale map position and get another front, another fight going. Personally I never asked for them to be removed, I always had much in in trying to guess the next attack and to go goon hunting...
But last Sunday was a prime example of what's going wrong. One side was completely outnumbering the other one, and only then the NOE'S started rolling. And not just one or two. It went on for hours, always rapidly switching target at the first sign of resistance. For gameplay, this was a catastrophe.
Just to emphasize again, I'm not completely happy with the change... but I do see where it came from.