Right around that time they changed their policy on visa length. Crudely put, they unclenched their butt cheeks. Where before they had made people start with a 1 year visa and jump through the hoops of renewing it one year at a time for a few years before granting them the boon of a 3 year visa, they suddenly decided to just go ahead and grant three year renewals in most cases.
They also greatly loosened up on handing out permanent residency back around the same time, which explains how a certain no-longer-present JREFer got PR within a very short time of showing up here.
I don't know exactly why they changed the policy, which had been rather hardassed for decades. I suspect that it could be to reduce the workload on Immigration. Or it could be a silent backdoor method to encourage a situation where more foreigners end up staying here more or less permanently, to prop up Japan's sagging birth rate / population. Or maybe it is something else.