I think what people saw as a "deprioritizing" was always part of the plan, even before COVID. Their comments made in 2018 and 2019, in the lead up to SWGE opening, seemed to suggest that they realized a need to revalue the product and control crowds. It wasn't in their best interest to let *everyone* through the gate at a significantly lower value than they thought they could achieve. They raised prices, muddled with AP systems and introduced ticketing tiers in order to maximize the yield on their investments.
With that in mind, it absolutely made sense to pause any investment until you knew if the audience would accept the higher valuation in the product or not. If SWGE turned out to be a failure, and revenues started to decrease, it would have completely changed how much they would be willing to invest in the parks for decades to come.
Now that the audience HAS accepted the higher valuation and paid more for SWGE, they can plan out future expansions with bigger budgets to ensure the high ticket valuation remains.