I imagine a lot of folks assumed that they would just do a repeat to keep the house count up since the success of the event seems to support the need for the number of houses and maybe that was a plan.
To me UNI really seems to do a lot of surveys for HHN and it feels like they take feedback seriously. I know a lot of us around here (myself included) felt that the repeat of AWiL did not capture the feel of the 1st run and I assume the cast just did not click the way they did that 1st year...so maybe feedback told them it didn't work so they adjusted this year?