Did they lobotomize Grok Expert for free users or what?

I've been using Grok Expert when I wanted a chatbot as I am a cheapskate and it seemed to have the best free model (at least in terms of # of inquiries; Claude and Gemini give you like 3). However, today, it has been horrendous. It no longer spends almost any time thinking, even on technical questions, and it has stopped having a clean, clinical response style (I preferred this) to instead do that annoying Grok house style. Any idea what happened?