LisaRose - "...they should never, ever be an elder again, these are innocent children, you don't risk it."
That was their position a while back (after the Dateline thing).
I suspect, however, that they started running out of "qualified brothers", and felt they had no choice but to soften up on it just to keep the congregations functioning.
Of course, morphing the WTS into a "e-religion" would neatly solve that problem, but that just makes it easer to fade/leave.