The editorialized title could be "Firefox removes most used keyboard shortcut". See the bugzilla comments :)
It seems they saw that the ratio using Alt+Left (2M) and Alt+Right (0.5M) was different to Backspace (40M) and Shift+Backspace (0.3M). However it makes sense a single key shortcut is more discoverable. The first time it's hit might be a mistake, but the following times might be on purpose.
It seems obviously implausible to me.
It's also worth pointing out there isn't a great opportunity to learn the keyboard shortcuts Firefox provides. Traditionally you'd learn shortcuts by seeing them next to menu items, but the menus are hidden behind the Alt key, and many actions simply aren't listed there. For example, "Find Again" / F3 is omitted.