It's pretty normal opportunity cost evaluation, really. Making something a block means it's individually responsible for like 40% of your annual revenue. It's always gonna be worthwhile to steer away from previous failures on a margin like that because if you fail again then you blew a ton of cash on a trivially predictable mistake.
And to be clear, their standards for this aren't hugely high. In the 10 year planar era, it's only the two worst-polling planes they've done (#1 Kamigawa and #2 Lorwyn) that they've specifically said wouldn't clear the bar. That seems pretty legitimate.
People play new mechanics wrong in the pre-release window for every set ever, but all indications are that Aftermath isn't notably confusing and people are getting used to it like they got used to the original split cards. If it had the standard split card frame you'd still have people fucking up Failure >> Comply in Vintage ten years from now.
Yep, it makes absolutely no sense to go back to a plane that wasn't liked given their development cycle and how much rests on each set being a winner. They have an entire multiverse to explore - if they want to give those themes another go they can always create a new plane and try that, which escapes the baggage of the failed plane but gives them space to explore the same concept area.
(E.g. Rose water has spoken about going to a different Japanese style plane, and how a fairy tale plane wouldn't be llorwyn but might have some similar themes).