Either they are losing the battle with open standards and decided to try to appear to conform a bit more by complying with one here or there, or they have other reasons that will greatly benefit them in the long run that no one is seeing right now.
I can't believe that a company that has given the finger to open standards all these years is all of a sudden compliant and wants to do the very best job they can. Right....
Something's up.
Right now, there is no IE version that runs a decent version of Javascript. I have a page that looks similar to a spreadsheet that when you modify a field and tab, it takes 10 seconds for the cursor to get to the next field. Contrast that to Firefox (any version) and it's instantaneous. I have tested the latest released version of IE (version 9) and it's still not right.
Lip service sounds more accurate with a few smatterings of actions that are appearing to prove it. Not buying it, but it's a nice thought.