Dave, those thoughts crossed my mind as well.  If you get the protein level too high, your fiber levels will be low, and the dairy will need to feed straw to slow down the rate of passage in the rumen.

I suspect the "feed man/nutritionist" change was made at the company level, and the dairy did not have a choice in it.  

I also wonder if the dairyman was griping to the company nutritionist about the cost of the ration, maybe the soybean meal/protein cost in particular. In this gripe session, the nutritionist suggested that one way to reduce the cost was to get higher protein levels in the forages, without taking into account the ramnifications throughout the whole process.  This might be how the whole thing started - I don't know, I am guessing.