Ben mentions his frustrations in his blog: Despite my personal opinion that these changes were unnecessary and frankly absurd (in addition to costly: 1" bolts cost around $10 apiece), we didn't really have any choice but to make the changes. After all, for the Cambridge and MIT to let us build this thing and have people ride it, we absolutely needed our plans to be signed off by a professional engineer.
The Roller Coaster used to be an annual tradition but was put on hold the past few years because of EHS regulations and safety concerns. I know they really wanted to build it this year, so they obliged with the request.