if we're going to go down this line of thinking, and as much as I hate to single him out because he was the go-to scapegoat for everything bad at DC, but if that were the case it would have to be Didio or someone in his camp wouldn't it? I mean the lay-offs are pretty fresh, I think anyone who had it out for Duke would've still been around to block him by the time they would've been doing Robin King and the early planning phase of whatever Snyder has in store for Duke. we saw 5G get scrapped and Tynion's run extended when Didio left, I can see Snyder deciding to double down on Duke around the same time if Didio's camp were the ones obstructing him.
I think either it's just weird timing or it's possible that after Didio's departure, and after Milestone was settled, while they were gearing up for the lay offs someone higher up wanted to start gearing up for a diversity push. Other History of DC, Milestone revival and reprints, John Ridley's Fox family Batman story all lined up plus Naomi season 2 is still on the Horizon seem to be coordinated. so they must've decided to greenlight another Duke push since Duke has a small, devoted and growing base, plus Snyder (the DC architect right now) CLEARLY wants Duke to take off. Snyder was probably campaigning for him behind the scenes plus he is on Jim Lee's radar; Lee was the one who confirmed Duke was supposed to connect to the Immortal Men series down the line.