As you would have been told in the second paragraph had you actually read the article, this is not a replacement for the existing Pi 500, which costs about that much MSRP.
Is their strategy to branch out to more premium prices? Did they see enough uptake of the Pi 500 that they figured there's enough of a niche to want to pay $200 for a bit more?
It's just interesting to me that they started out making cheap little educational devices that were great for the price and now they're making $200 devices. I understand there's a profit-making side to Raspberry Pi now that they're not strictly just a charity, so this must be some long-term bet.