Conjecture:
I think EA is having a problem with developers knowing it fucking sucks to work for EA, and so it's harder to get good developers for the teams. Seriously, who right now says "Oh man, I'd LOVE to work for EA!?" except maybe some brogrammer cause like sports and stuff. I'm sure they didn't plan for this in their short term money-grab thinking. Managers are chosen because of their short term money-grab ideas that please the higher-ups (and that use up precious development time), and not because of their ability to actually lead a team to an amazing final product.
EA is a mature company and it needs to make mature decisions. Chasing short term money at the expense of long-term stability is going to fuck you up, possibly irreversibly.
Origin is fucking stupid. I don't even bother to open it to play the couple almost-free games I got from the EA Origin humble bundle.