Your second to last sentence seems to say that you agree that this is a threat
Yet you go so far out of your way to sound like you refute the premise, in the rest of your post.
The rules change sounds like a grave mistake, to me. And it looks to be politically motivated (or is there a way you can spin it to make it look like plain good sense - help me see it, if so).
It looks like the rule change is designed to exclude the pure scientists and include industrial scientists. Why do this unless you have a preference for industrial scientists? If so, then why the preference?