Yes, they were cheap. Thanks to one Paul Pressler, TDA had a few other things to be concerned about back when it did not have a nighttime parade.
TDA owns the MSEP, it was only on loan to WDW. TDO has only "owned" one parade - SpectroMagic. They also have an extremely short-sighted view on parades - Do whatever is cheapest.
TDO also has a long-standing reputation with parade float maintenance, or lack thereof, otherwise the MSEP would never have needed to come back to the swamps. Ask some CMs in DL about their neglect of parade floats sometime.