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It make sense to make the change for The Rugby Championship. Every team goes into that tournament on equal footing and each will have four games to make adjustments. Whether or not a team can make the adjustments and win doesn't really matter. Sure, all teams want to win the best competition in the world, but it's not as if more than IRB rankings are at stake. The same can't be said about the WCQ series between the U.S. and Canada. Both teams have spent all summer preparing for this series and now the IRB changes the rules on them. These teams only have a few matches to qualify for the World Cup and now this changes their approach.
One change to the overall game isn't going to be the only difference in the final scores, but it doesn't help. It would be interesting to know if the IRB warned the U.S. and Canada about the change? I highly doubt it. You would have to think that the change will hurt the U.S. more. After what was a strong scrumming November the Eagles scrum gradually fell apart of the summer and now lacks confidence. Making a change midstream making mistakes bound to happen, isn't going to help their confidence.
The front three of Eric Fry, Shawn Pittman, and Chris Biller had done better in November before being obilterated this summer. All three were extremely frustrated by Pastrana at times, but if you remember, not all the scrum problems went away with Pastrana. The U.S. scrum still had amples of trouble against Fiji and Japan under referee Greg Garner.
On the bright side, the U.S. won't have referee Francisco Pastrana to deal with. The IRB has selected Leighton Hodges from Wales and JP Doyle from England as referees for the two-leg series. Hodges will handle the match in Charleston while Doyle will handle the match in Toronto.