Overthinking, maybe.
It just seems so odd.
It is completely effortless to gather useful information: How many people leave half-way through a meeting? A rational organization would want to know that, I would think.
Why make a special effort to announce the elimination of a procedure no one complained about, a change that will provide even less information?
One thought occurs to me: Are they considering trimming down the meetings even further? Maybe eliminate the public talk all together?
Sounds far-fetched, but I would have had the same reaction to the idea of eliminating in-home book studies 5 years ago.