I suspect, and this is merely a wild azz guess on my partā¦.
S&W had problems with the EZ when it was in .380. They were plagued with failures to eject. The owners of some of these guns desperately tried to blame magazines, springs and everything elseā¦except the gun and the .380 round.
As we have seen the .380 has a large following. They were willing to pay crazy prices for .380 ammo prior to CRB. Old people, recoil sensitive people, men thinking their wife or girlfriend would like guns better with a .380. And those are legit applications.
But the .380 round is a POS, no matter how hard you want it not to be; a turd is a turd. The youngsters of today claim "todays innovations in ammo has made the .380 a good round." These are the same youngsters that claim the Hydra-Shok is "old technology".
That's fine, take that round, claim some changes, give it a new name (HST) and all is still good in the world.
By beefing up the power of a .380 maybe it can actually, reliably, run the action in some of these larger heavier guns. Maybe.
Will the difference between the recoil of it and a 9mm be enough to sway folks away from the .380 as an alternative to a 9mm? We shall see. Apparently they think it will.