They created 6.01, which serves at an "intro to EECS" so it involves both EE and CS, as opposed to the old intro 6.001 which was really an introduction to CS. Some argue that this course is easier (I never took it, so I can't say) which could definitely be argued is to make EECS a little more gentle and open in response to the dot com crash.
They also broke up 2 very difficult courses, 6.046 introduction to algorithms and 6.170 lab for computer science, and at least put some of their course work into new courses. Again this could be seen as making the entire major a little gentler.
They also changed requirements. In the past there had been a lot of CS focused students who were uninterested in doing any EE, and were choosing to major in 18.c (math with computer science) to avoid an EE course load. The department right thought it was a little crazy that people were leaving the CS department in order to focus more on CS, so they lightened the required EE coursed for 6.3 (a major focused on CS) and vice versa.
This is all my recollection from the 07-09 era and from talking to some students since. There could be some errors in details.
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