It happened much later than that - perhaps a week or two ago because "He who must remain anonymus" was complaining to ZER0 that the deformed has so much of a disadvantage with the knockback.

In my humble opinion, having no knockback brings in new strategies seeing how it can nullify tube campers (YAY!). However, I think it just has way too much hp for someone with less knockback. ZER0 has mentioned that he may modify the deformed so the "head" is much larger, therefore easier for headshots. I would probably suggest leave the head the way it is and just make it have less health.