I completely agree JB.
We will never know of course, but it's as if they were under orders from on high (either the upper echelons of management at Cakewalk, or direct from Roland) to maintain a stand-offish approach to the forums, and definitely not to engage on anything remotely contentious. With the recent announcements, it's like Gibson/Tascam have broken the Roland shackles and allowed them to do what they're good at again - talking to their customers and actively getting involved in discussions about their products.
Of course, most of the recent activity upstairs by Seth, Ryan, Andrew and Noel can be explained by the release of X3, but even then, as you correctly point out, that involvement has been much more candid, and dare I say, more passionate. Time will tell if this welcome involvement is completely X3-related, but I'd like to think that it will continue at least at pre-Roland levels.
The one downside to this, and I'm just guessing here, might be that we lose Brandon as an 'official' contributor, unless of course the new owners have the good sense to snatch him back from Roland if they still can.