Pretty big rework of how storm totem works, again just because its not “omg crazy different” to you does not mean it didnt get reworked.
A base functionality change is not a “slight alteration” it became vastly different.
Bro a good chunk of the classes are missing final skills. Paladin was part of the sentinel rework, and still didnt get its final skill
Rogue didnt get a new class, it got its final class that had been planned since the start. Falconer was not some new class randomly added to give rogues more power, they just literally hadnt even started with all their classes in the game rofl.
Again, sounds like you are mad shaman is not meta, but that does not mean they have not reworked shaman.
Also in the same patch falconer came out, 1.0, shaman got its rework, tempest strike and gathering storm were reworked. The storm bolt stuff was the shaman rework, again, can be mad about it all you want, but you cant just hand wave away they literally talked about it as a shaman rework to better tie shaman together thematically.
Tornado and maelstrom both can proc gathering storm bolts, and thus are tied into the main theme of shaman, which is bolts.