They said they would be adding new items you could purchase with red scrips. I'm guessing you will be able to direct purchase mats needed for new gear with red scrips. Maybe some items are only thru crafter scrips and some only thru gather scrips but won't necessarily rely on each other like the current Favors setup. This could be why they said mats would be easier to obtain.

I don't think any of the new stuff will be accessed via current red tokens or mats because they already exist en masse in the game. Anytime new tier stuff is released it's essentially a fresh start so relying on older currencies is rarely a thing.