More or less. Crit atk is really the only worthwhile stat you can meld to body for monk anyway. If your GC doesn't have a decent body, that's the most accessible solution. But honestly, I wouldn't go out of my way to build for crit atk on monk. It's not like dragoon where you have multiple skills with increased crit rate on top of blindside. Seeing big HF numbers is nice, but I'd trade them for a Corslet just so I don't have to think about Sanciton ever again lol.
I don't think crit atk was ever buffed. The crit change I remember was in the patch back when dragoon's weapon skills lost their accuracy penalty. I believe all they did there was reduce the dLvl penalty in the crit rate formula though. Being able to significantly boost your crit rate against high level mobs got people interested in stacking crit power to complement that. It was a while ago, and I'm too lazy to go look for the post. I'm fairly sure it was in the patch notes though.