That's rather a bad move.
I doubt the halving of MΣC would matter much. The previous halving also halved the price and it's still going down slowly. And updates are nice but only for those directly involved in mining, as they are most aware of the changes. I wonder if it will have any impact on the exchanges. The long term effect might be different, but that effect is slow and might also be halved because if the downwards spiral of the value.
What's really needed is a wider acceptance, by investors but also markets and services that accept MΣC
I think that the price didn't move because of the problems that it started encountering at that time. It's a rough time for MEC but hopefully we can get back on track soon.