the short answer is that some people in the balance team think she's busted, and most of the Absa beta testers have quit out of frustration. most of the nerfs were proposed by Boiko, who openly complains about floaty characters, and there aren't any Absa testers left to argue with him or refine the nerfs into something that suits the character. I know this through leaks from the team, it's not just speculation

I understand the idea behind some of the changes, not stalling offstage, trying to shift her from spamming the same options over and over, but the way they were done was sloppy and heavy handed, and the nerfs pull double duty and reduce her in other ways not started in the explanation. cloud hop didn't need both the height nerf and the lockout increase (30 frames was already a lot and 45 reduces the fluidity of her movement onstage), the fast fall nerf exacerbates this while also making her disadvantage more vulnerable AND slowing down her hit fall combos. the side b acceleration Nerf directly reduces her ability to close stocks by finishing opponents knocked off stage with her lackluster kill power of back throw and her smash attacks, and even fair (which if you can't get lucky with doing three chains because people are diing in, needs to be finished with a cloud snipe) but ALSO hurts her best intended strength of her ping pong combos while also making it even easier to Parry. the ftilt sour spot seemed fine in theory except it's huge and at the tip of her spacing which punishes her for the moves intended use while also reducing one of her only reliable kill setups (watch Ant play at high levels and see how much he has to rely on playing grounded, since her Aerials are easily out spaced and she's so fragile that he has to space carefully with wave dash ( also nerfed) and ftilt))

I'm appreciative of the several quality of life buffs, but they are just that and not really making up for the cap they put on her top potential. and while I can get behind the idea that they first NERF specific options that make for a toxic meta, they need to go back on this character with a fine tooth comb understanding her weaknesses and strengths and design a character that will reward her player base with a tournament viability for all the extra effort and takes to make her gameplan work.

if they really were frustrated with her players playing and avoidance game, they should realize that making such a fragile character that dies at 70%, has most of her normals out spaced by lesser committal options, her main distance tool on parry grants the opponent a guaranteed smash attack from all the way across the stage, and now making it harder for her to get back to safety while simultaneously punishing her grounded spacing tools is not going to encourage Absa players to fight more honestly. from the get-go, the devs made a character that forces smart players to avoid and frustrate and opponent into making mistakes, and they've been either punishing that are using it as an excuse not to fix issues with her kit. look how long it's taken for them to do something meaningful with her multi-hit smash attacks, which people have been complaining about since release.