Pretty much, yeah. I think the problem was that he was placed right next to a fatal drop, and the game seems to sometimes "miss" a bit when placing NPCs. I know I've seen Shiva in Blighttown set a ways ahead of where he was supposed to be, happily leaning against thin air, or one time Vamos was set too far forward so his seat was empty and he was sort of crouching on top of his anvil hammering nothing in particular. When it happens it's usually pretty harmless but amusing, but with how the ninja was basically standing directly on the edge of the cliff if his placement was off by even the slightest amount when he spawned he'd fall right off and it'd boot you out of the covenant.
Now he stands a ways forward, significantly closer to Shiva and much further from the cliff edge. Much bigger margin for error.
