To be clear, I don't know if they stopped checking individual blocks, but I do know that the growing number of staff responding to adoption requests can cause inconsistencies in their assessment, especially if they have just been doing it for a short time. I reckon staff has a list of those guidelines somewhere, and if some of those staff members interpret guidelines as really hard rules, it is not clear if there is a consensus to check individual blocks or not. With 1 person checking adoption requests (possibly 2), and has been doing it for a long time, you usually knew what to expect, but with 5-6 different people, of which most are not full-time staff, this is uncertain.
From what I heard, the policy of bad adminship isn't finished yet, but that's also why I still mentioned that they could contact staff.