Ah, cool. Nobody goes back and re-reads original posts once they’ve started a topic, typically, so I missed the update!
I don’t think that’s unfortunate at all. Frankly, there’s not a viable market for a commercial F/A-18C for MSFS with the free F/A-18E, so I’m super-happy to see this. If you check the screenshots, it looks pretty awesome in MSFS, and I’m sure the Flightsim.to crowd will hop right on tweaking the flight model to handle more like the classic Hornet. And it’s a full rebuilt and enhanced native conversion, not a portover like those nightmare auto-ported FSX planes we got before SU5 mercifully broke them.
When you factor in reality vs desire, it’s a pretty awesome move on Dean’s part. Considering that devs want to sell enough to justify having an add-on business, a free good-quality legacy Hornet that can be easily modded and enhanced is likely a best-case scenario for MSFS.
(And if a legacy portover isn’t authentic enough, the gun-totin’ alternative sim that will not be named is the place to be anyway. 
)