I did not catch that part. I had thought it was a matter of the previous host having the only backup and not delivering it for some reason. My main thought was that if AUGI had done their own backups periodically, they could have had a copy of their original data all this time, and reused it, regardless of some silly ownership claims.
The Augi / SolidVapor divorce was quite messy as I understand it. I think SV has used every advantage it has, including maintaining ownership and control of the data, as leverage over Augi in the meantime. Looking back, I guess Augi felt like they wanted to run with the new website at AU, instead of waiting to see if they could negotiate an agreement with SV.
None of that explains dropping vBulletin though.
(BTW: That is all my uninformed opinion - I don't claim to have any inside knowledge of anything, just from what I read or hear... Anyone with hard facts, feel free to correct me. Thanks)