Does your view extend to management and marketing as well as engineering? My speculation is that external forces to the engineering team may have been pulling them in different directions. Sounds like I maybe grasping at straws in an effort to try and get a better understanding for some of the recent design decisions made on the product.
There was a massive schism between the HP/Intel faction of the IPF design team in FTC and the Intel former Alpha design team faction in MA and CA about 15 months ago.
I have heard contradictory accounts from folks from both of the engineering camps on the general technical details of this schism and know what eventually transpired. What I don't know is how and why the decision was made with respect to input from top Intel and HP management and the role or extent of any conflicting interests of the two companies in that decision. It certainly generated a lot of unnecessary bad blood and subsequent attrition in the second camp.
But as you said the events of the past few months make it pretty clear that all major parties involved still have a strong committment to IPF at the business and strategic level and things are solidifying on the development side.