Is season 48 ’s steamroll the reason for the last episode’s (s49 e8) voting format?

This last episode, season 49 episode 8, the tribes were split into two groups of 5 for the immunity challenge. One group won immunity and the other group went to tribal council. This is unusual in the merge.

I honestly like how no one is safe in the merge portion of the game. However, I think production learned from Season 48’s steamroll. Season 48 had a majority group of 6 (Kyle, Joe, Eva, Shauhin, David, & Mary) pick off the minority (Mitch, Kamila, Sai, Chrissy, Star). The minority had no power the entire game. Season 48 was frustrating for viewers to watch and for players to play.

It looks like production engineered the split and Savannah’s extra vote advantage so if there was another hopeless minority, they could get the numbers. Of course, this voting situation could have backfired if someone in the majority won, giving them more power. Granted, if the voting situation didn’t happen, someone in the minority would have been picked off anyway.

I think production realized giving the minority a chance at power with this voting situation was better than no chance and a boring steamroll instead. What are your thoughts?