I think a large part of that was the growing popularity of Twitter, the low barrier to entry for creating these clients and that Twitter.com took a rather minim

I think a large part of that was the growing popularity of Twitter, the low barrier to entry for creating these clients and that Twitter.com took a rather minimal approach. Most of the Twitter clients early on were built just because the creator wanted something other clients or Twitter.com didn't have. But over time that changes and you begin to serve a section of the Twitter audience. So this begs the question; has the string of recent events changed the way Twitter client developers are able to server their market. If it has then Twitter should directly address that. If it hasn't but has confused people then it is important that Twitter is open about their policies and ideologies.