I know that Ananda makes an issue out of this change by SRF, and I'm largely in sympathy with your view, not because I support the lambasting of SRF but because I don't like the revision his disciples are doing to his work.
That said something else I would like to ask you. I have the book The Path by Kriyananda and all through it he spells the title with the A. It is a 1977 edition. If he didn't find the offending A so terrible in '77 why does he/Ananda now?