The players complained about the lack of gnomes, so they were increased with a nerf in rewards - understandable.
However, during the vault event, we get the same rate of gnomes, with the same reduced rewards. We would be getting much much better drops in the vault right now if the devs never made the change.
The net result of the change is actually less loot. Vault doesn’t even seem that exciting when you have a chance of coming out with 2 minor traitstones or 100 souls.