Lincoln, your answer:
Here is your EXPLANATION:
You have north of 1 million Apps for sale today on iOS. Back then in 2010, it was ~ 100,000 Apps for sale.....and for iPad, which debuted in April 2010, it was far, far less. MRNJ was an early mover in the App medium and were able to release apps for sale on iPhone in late 2009 and iPad beginning immediately after iPad launch in April 2010. The Apps were exclusively one-off Apps, a straightforward $$ amount that could be applied to the grossing ranks by 3rd party ranking sites. Thus, many of their (MRNJ's) apps, especially in the underserved H & F and Lifestyle categories, were able to reach the Top 200 grossing list frequently.
You have north of 1 million Apps for sale today. You also have freemium Apps that were very rare back in 2010.
Competition and Discoverability presently, is far, far different than 3-4 years ago.
Considering the amount apps for sale NOW, not to mention a far larger mobile device audience, an MRNJ app attaining the Top 200 or even Top 1000 in a category is significantly more meaningful in terms of absolute grossing $$ than they were when MRNJ's one-offs dominated the Top 200.
Hopefully this clarifies things.
If anybody else has questions about this topic, let me know.
StormKing