Well I don't think this is an intentional effort. I could see how it might appear that way but in the case of the lasher, anyone who regularly follows the dev tracker will realize that the 5 m no lash effect was original enabled to assist in not lashing friendlies. Later the change was made so that the lash effect ignores friendlies. In a conversation Smoke was reminded that the 5 m no-lash was still in effect and since it was originally meant to not lash firendlies (which it no longer does at all) the 5 m no-lash zone probably wasn't needed. What the devs didn't realize was the problems with lash that cause lash standing behind the shooter, lashing through walls, and the effect multiple lashers in one spot. Those bugs have probably been there for a long time but with 5 m no-lash zone, they proabably went un-noticed until they removed it. The bugs combined with multiple lashers was enough for them to re-enable the 5 m no-lash restriction which again masks the bugs and brings multiple lasher users back into balance. Intentional? I doubt it - more of an oops, which happens sometimes. The devs are human after all.