Daken and Bling! were relative nobodies and Iceman took the top writer at Marvel to (finally) make it happen.
Claremont used coded language and innuendo back in the 1980s, but when he came back he didn’t have enough pull to make something like this official. Similar to when Asmus wanted to reveal Gambit’s bisexuality and was shot down. Or Hopeless & Bunn with Namor & Pietro being a couple in Secret Wars HOM, since it was based directly on 616. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I encourage you to go ahead and ask Chris Claremont about this directly. He’s active on facebook and loves interacting with fans. And his intent and opinion on this matter is crystal clear.