Rules changed on Jan 1 of this year, that every small plane needed more instrumentation e.g. GPS. Existing solutions were very expensive. uAvionix has build and qualified a digital instrument at 10% the cost of the big-plane solutions. Which is good, since existing instruments can cost as much as a Cessna.
Most private pilots missed the deadline. So the FAA fast-tracked this digital solution, writing new rules as they went.
Disclaimer: My consulting company worked on the firmware for the AV-30