@Janette -

It read more like Automattic crew came down hard on the review team and cracked the whip...

Just to be clear: Automattic have no authority over WPORG or the WP Theme Review Team. The decision to make the change came out of considerable discussion by many developers and reviewers, not as an edict from anyone at Automattic. And if it doesn't work, or we find that overall Theme quality suffers as a result, we'll change it back.

@Felix -

Maybe WP should just stop accepting theme submissions, it’s obvious they don’t really want any, and people who keep submitting simply happen to be masochists.

I see you still have that same, three-year-old chip on your shoulder. That's unfortunate. In the past six months, almost 500 new Themes have been added to the Theme directory. One of those could have been yours. Shame.