There is no conspiracy.
Am I thrilled with it? No. For the new numbering system, they probably should've added a prefix, say, a letter maybe, along with the 4 digits, and the letter(s) suffix.
That way, the new numbering system is obvious. Staring it at 7 is an indicator as well, since nothing else had a number starting at 7000 yet, but it does very much seem like a change in generation.
At least, for those people familiar with and used to it. For new customers, I don't know if this is the confusion point of real confusion. Having been out of the game for a while, I was very confused back in 2012 trying to figure out Intel's model numbers when I ultimately got a Sandy Bridge based system. But first gen was still around, and I didn't know what any of the numbers meant back then.