It's been mentioned by several well-versed posters that there was an internal discussion as to how far the team should go with developing their attacking phases and that the board was placing pressure to provide something that is more marketable.
goreds actually threw in some of this info half-looking to seek feedback, to which I told him at the time they should be working on balancing the attacking phases into the existing game plan rather than going all-out in attack just to develop that subset of their structures. Instead, we played for shoot outs with a notable injury list and shitty spare parts and subsequently were blown out of the water.
I'm sure if a journalist of any repute wanted to tug some strings that they will find this to be true, but note that the board did not make the final decision, they simply campaigned hard to see how we'd look with caution thrown to the wind for a few early rounds as we drive for membership.
The plan actually worked from AFLX until round 2, but it can be argued that what we gained compared to a more sensible approach, we'll lose next year if this rot continues.