Unless I've been missing something, this is a pretty new phenomenon. That of the GB and others of high rank in the organization insisting that they will "never change" their "scriptural position" on a matter. As if there wasn't 150 years of the WTBTS constantly changing almost every single position it has ever taken. Even the disfellowshipping/shunning policy has been changed before.
They're becoming bolder and bolder, and I wonder how they will worm out of their previous statements that they will never change their position when the light inevitably gets brighter and they come up with an "updated understanding".