This topic has always fascinated me.
My pet belief (as unprovable as any other speculation):
The 9/11/2001 World Trade Center attacks put "the fear of God" into one or more previously wavering GB members, who perhaps reluctantly agreed to the new wording.
I suspect these GB members either viewed it as a "shot across the bow" from Jehovah himself, warning them of "his mighty power" and expressing his disapproval of the change....or at the very least, made them think "Armageddon is very close now, let's be as conservative as possible."
And so a GB meeting was quickly convened and all the reluctant voters switched back to their previous hardline position.
Come to think of it, most of the reinforcement of the extreme hardline positions, which had softened over the previous few decades, seemed to start around 2001/2002.
Stuff like
-- Absolute condemnation of university education
-- Absolute enforced extreme shunning of even the closest DF'ed relatives
-- Absolute unwavering loyalty, obedience, and submission to every honey-dripped expression emanating from the GB's collective mouths
-- Absolute condemnation of modern technology (cell phones, internet "chat rooms", etc.) which are held to inevitably and irreversibly lead to apostasy or a life utter degradation as a porn addict.
As I said, I base this on nothing more than my fevered imagaination.
But it certainly fits like a custom made shoe.
