Shorter answer:
Yes.
Smart-aleck answer:
You found the forum, now find the patch notes.
Polite, longer answer including a bit of my own opinion:
Yes, they wanted to add challenge and increase retention, so they changed pit scaling to be far more aggressive, and matched the torment tiers to it. Personally, I don’t think making torment tiers harder is a terrible idea, but they should have left pits the way they were, and changed torment equivalents to higher pit levels.
There’s also the problem though that the difference in tiers is enormous, like you stated.
A lot of other gains were nerfed also, which begs a couple of questions: why is Blizzard worried about seasonal retention anyway when the mode literally revolves around jumping in, buying the battlepass, clearing it, and leaving until next season? Moreover, if they are concerned about retention, why do they think the answer is to make the grind longer and even less rewarding, instead of making the content more fun and compelling?