That is good to hear your client changed things up and will be stronger for it. We all become stuck in our thinking at times and there is always an answer if you are looking. Stress tends to block people from thinking clearly and sometimes it helps people to talk to people outside of their company. You tend to find when problems arise the worst people to solve it are the ones sitting with the problem as they can't  see other solutions. I think that is why companies used to look outside the staff pool they had at one time as it is easy to come fresh into something and see what is wrong immediately.