That and in the last five years or so, they have really started to impose a view of how the game 'should' be played, rather than simply making cards and seing what happens (other than testing for balance).
It's an interesting idea, but I don't see much evidence of it--beyond a certain level of, I don't know, "land destruction is unfun, so we don't make solutions that are strong enough to base an entire deck around", or "faerie decks are getting too strong, so we're printing a dozen answers in Conflux". All of which has been going on for a long time.
Right now they're making a big push for new player acquisition and strengthening the core sets, so instead of 11th Edition we're getting "Magic 2010", with the idea that each core set is named after the first full year it'll be legal in. Yearly core sets, too, and in addition to being black bordered, they're doing both reprints and new cards, with an emphasis on classic fantasy flavor the sets have lacked since, eh, maybe Revised.