Having lawnmower problems in Plants vs. Zombies 2? Here's why

My girlfriend and I have been fans of Plants vs. Zombies 2 since the game was released last year.  Until we finished the game in late December it was something we would play together on our iPads while watching BPL soccer on TV.  I wasn't the biggest fan of the game's free to play model but I managed to play through the entire game without spending any money on it.  Since it's launch the game has released a number of free patches that smoothed out some issues in the structure of the game and added a bunch of new content.  This included patch that was released last week which added a new boss level.

Some users got a bit more than the new boss though as they got a major tweak in how the lawnmowers worked in the game.  This change caused the lawnmowers in the game (a key part of your defense) to not automatically respawn if they were consumed in a level unless players bought new mowers with coins (which are either earned in game or purchased with real money).  Needless to say, a few people were upset  with the the change.  

I reached out to Electronic Arts this afternoon about this change since I couldn't confirm this in either the iOS or Android version of the game and tonight I received this official statement:

"We are always testing new features in Plants vs. Zombies 2. The lawnmower feature noted by some players was part of a small-scale test and is now over.”

That solves that mystery as it looks like EA was trying out changes with a small group of people to see how it impacted the core game.  From the looks of it I think we know it is a pretty big impact given the level of vitriol it raised with customers.  Personally, I hope this is something they decide against rolling out to everyone in the future.