This is the first visible and physical evidence to JWs gathering in any given KH that they downsizing - and they are not impressed.
For decades they heard and read stories of expansion everywhere. Full-speed they were going into the new system (order). Why, if anything else, their organization would increase and expand. Properties & moneys & lit & everyhing.
And now it hits them on the home front.
The tract-like Awake! does not even cut it as a second grade National Geographic magazine. And it looks cheesy, and they ask themselves how this inelegant paper will be perceived.
Believing in the 'highway of holiness' they are not used to lowering quality standards.