If you take this change in teaching with the general tone of the Watchtower of late, there is a real sense of the Governing Body seeking legitimacy. The new generation teaching acts is sort of a passing of the baton, from the former group to the new.
I suppose I could see the old guard telling stories of how 40 to 35 years ago, they were really enjoying all the buzz and excitement. The younger members of the GB salivating at the thought of the end being so imminent. "Can we get that feeling back?" asks one.
"It would have to be done without naming the year, but it I think so."
"Good. That might help us retain the older JW's. Maybe they will leave their estates to us if the end is really really close this time."
"Okay, we have a couple of things in the works. One is comparing the last days to the last days before the flood and saying the limit is 120 years. But 2034 is a ways off still. There's also this wild idea about the overlap of the generation that we were working on. That one could be put in place right away."
"Alright, let's vote on both of them. You all take a week to see what scriptures we could use or even more important, what old light we can quote to show that we were already leaning toward one of them by spirit-direction."