As before, I can only agree that you are absolutely right. I have now seen enough LS maps to be able to say quite clearly that more has changed than should probably be changed.
That was never related to inner or outer position. Not that I would know, but I'm quite sure the game does not care too much about that?
Tho I disagree that it is "much easier" overall. I've seen some quite nasty T2s still and it has never been set that you had a 2 Manabeast start, what you describe was just the "worst/best (whatever) scenario".
One thing that I can say for sure for now is the following: Before the mentioned patch it was set that whenever Manabeasts spawned, they were accompanied by 2 or 3 Spellbreakers, always. That also had the problem that it was either super easy, or super hard. This flattened nicely these days from my feeling.
Nowadays both spawn Independently and rarely (or even, "not") together anymore. Together with the super ugly exploding crawlers I would not even say that the difficulty was lowered thaaaat much, but rather overall flatened. While the easiest possible spawn is now harder, the super hard 2 Beast/3 Dancers/2 Shielders also can't happen anymore and the most difficult T2 campy are quite a bit easier.
But I personally feel that the change is even good. Though I liked to challenge myself with that start, even more when happening on outside position where you had 5 Spellbeakers sometimes, I feel the start was too much out of line with other 9s. LS is still one of the harder starts with Nature and for that I personally feel fine with the status quo.
The rest is up to design.