I've probably mentioned this but I had the opportunity to talk briefly to JJ in 2015 and I mentioned , in a very light manner , the BSS surgery as in "what really happened there?" and he immediately dashed off and that was the end of the conversation, so that might give us all an idea of what really happened. Jim's observation of it being yanked off his hands before it was really finished properly is the closest thing to what might have happened.
JJ doesn't strike me as someone with a sense of humor though (either that or I caught him at a VERY bad moment), which is unfortunate because the rest of KC does have one...I know I might have come across as a wiseass, but...lighten up , dude!! we are your FANS!
That reaction would sure line up with the theory FWIW.
I can say that I just know that some things are unintentional mistakes. When working on a mix, for example, you might have occasion to mute a channel to get it out of the way for a minute to focus on other mix elements without distraction. You're not entertaining the idea to remove that track! You're just focusing on a different mix element for a minute.
Then lunch arrives and you take a break.
You come back and hit play and get confused for a minute why a part is missing... Oh right! had that muted. <click>
But what if someone were to snatch it away before you came back from lunch?
Other more insidious mistakes happen and stick around on the mixing board for a spell before you finally catch them. Like accidentally clicking on a bus assign button and mult'ing your bass track to all speakers unintentionally, for example.
The thing is you just know he wasn't sitting there in front of K93 with the bass screaming through all speakers - wildly out of balance vs the original mix which is clearly guiding the rest of the album - and thinking "Yeah, now I've got it right!"
It could be something like the wrong rendered file getting delivered too.
Mistakes happen. It's fine.
Being so greedy cheap that you don't correct it and fix it anyway - embarrassing the artists and engineers involved greatly - in an expensive boxed edition where you'll have customers shelling out literally just for that surround mix is not fine. Not sure how it could get any worse actually. Short of re-releasing the same mistake twice or something...
The original stereo mix was clearly goosed up in the high end in mastering (listening from vinyl). I hear elements of presenting the mix free of that and corrected in this remix. The mistakes overshadow that but those elements are there none the less.
It's frustrating because all the hard parts have been nailed!
The band sounding like they sounded. The original recording and mix. Continued hunger and accolade leading to a surround remix. Clear evidence of attention to detail. We have the full fidelity lossless perfection in consumer formats. And a screw up in file delivery combined with over the top greed in marketing and packaging shuts the whole thing down?! Really?!?