Howtosayit, I agree that the overall process is indeed easier recently, most probably to account for the higher demand for pilots.
Concerning the new compass test, Since its also used in oxford, I didn't consider it to be as much of an issue, and if candidates could practice and improve their reflexes, it should effectively translate to better grading results.
However, from my understanding, the most significant change is that they took out an english test(or made it easier) and a math test and I don't see how this could lead to almost a 50% increase in failrate for grading...
(unless the candidates couldn't understand the instructions, in which case we can assume the fail rate is due to a language barrier.)