Yeah, I was thinking about that route this morning, I think the big issue was what was done to the Brown Dihedral, turning a great aid pitch into a bolt ladder. For me the question is somewhat academic, as I neither climb 5.12 nor am I much taken with aid climbing, but I find the question of whether free climbing is more "valuable" than aid climbing an interesting one, and a very current one with the freeing of various classic wall routes on El Cap. What about the Grand Wall, an enormously popular free (mostly free for most) climb. I'm sure it doesn't much resemble the aid climb it used to be, but I haven't heard anyone advocate for returning it to it's first ascent condition.
i done pan am. lead the brown dihedral. i thought it was a2 at most. piana put in bolts just to make the clips easier imo. sandy eggo local fukin chopped them bolts afore the season turned from what i heard.
and fuck the retrobolting jiveass euro huber brothers.