JW GoneBad - This point of "regular" also stood out to me at the "study". However, I also noticed that the hard line elder handling the study as well as some commentors seemed to completely miss the implication of this word as their comments totally reflected the strict stance of the past several decades. Nobody made a comment about the potential softened implication, but of course nobody wants to be the one to potentially cause dissention.
It did seem a bit odd the way it was worded, especially as the Organization is careful about the words they choose to use.