Personally, I have a feeling the devs are trying to be clever and introduce the other drops into the economy by forcing people to fight the land kings more. Problem is that I also feel the set up is dumb. I'm fine with the drop being removed from KS99, but not with it being removed from the land kings themselves. Faf should keep its chance to drop the beard, nerf Nidhogg's chance to drop it as you like, but otherwise little needed to be changed.