Well, I remember the posts by Statesman. It wasn't about making powers better without needing to overslot them or rebalancing the game. He and the other devs explicitly said it (like the Purple Patch, Taunt and AoE target limits) was to change the way people were playing the game. That's a punishment to people who wanted to play the game that way.
Then, long after the fact (and after Statesman left) the DEVs retconned the change as a necessary step, not to fix gameplay at the time, but to prepare for the Inventions system that would let hardcore players get OP in a different way.
You can claim the word punishment is over the top, but it was "you guys were naughty so we are changing the rules so you can't break them in ways we don't want you to."
This is completely untrue. Statesman made several comments that ED was necessary to make way for other progression systems. I remember he gave an example that they couldn't, for example, add an enhancement that enhanced for 50% because without ED it would simply be too good.
the original dually HOs enhanced by 50% for schedule "A" prior to the 1st HO nerf which predates ED
...Which were nerfed because prior to ED they were too strong.
they were never restored after ED either because Jack only works one way & had a very Harrison Bergeron esque approach to game balance, & character power levels. iirc he wanted us to be a equal to 3 minions smh
Even after ED they would've been too strong. Look at the numbers they went with for the invention system; even two-aspect +5 purple IOs don't get nearly as high as old HOs did.