This is REALLY interesting. It also makes a lot of sense, especially in relation to Bizarre's old video/design/editing guy working for Rare.I think the former head of Rare Mark Betteridge said something similar in an interview once in that they were looking to move to a more film industry like setup for staffing to help reduce the boom bust hiring cycle - http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/22/rare-boss-devs-take-naive-approach-when-estimating-game-budge/
If Rare did end up implementing that kind of system (have a core team and then add people on contracts or by outsource when they are required) Lucid might be doing something similar with Rare...
Lucid want said guy from Bizarre for work. Ask Microsoft to have said guy on-board. Rare (being a Microsoft company) hire said guy, but he works in the offices of Lucid.
Hell, there's no reason why Rare couldn't be almost some kind of proxy for hiring a shitload of people to work in Lucid's offices. For all we know, Rare might not have any of those ex-Codies etc. people in their offices at all... they may be in Lucid's.
Could also mean that Rare isn't the papa bear in this scenario, and Lucid really are the lead team, with only a small number of people (if any) actually based at Rare.
Plus, I don't think MS "own" any other companies in the UK that they could use for this type of thing. They don't own Playground, I know that much.
Edit: BTW don't put any stock in their FAQ being taken down... they may just want to remove it in advance of whatever's happening tomorrow-ish. Besides, they still have this up on their "About Us" page: