Yup, reinforcements didn’t facilitating zerging. The changes to the map and the player mentality did. Once they figured out losing a fast AV was more honor efficient than winning a long one, that’s what they did. But even that mentality in 1.5 wouldn’t work because the NPCs and the map simply doesn’t allow it.
I could probably count the number of AVs I’ve seen end with the Generals alive on one hand. Versus hundreds of AVs that ended after a General died. So reinforcements play almost no role.