No one is getting fired Jim,
More like
Railroad.Net became so popular that the host ISP decided that the site was drawing off too much bandwidth, hence why they (not Mike or Otto) pulled the plug.
But if you remember, prior to that, Mike said he was looking for better software than the home brew stuff he had. The old software was good, but cumbersome to work, and inefficient bandwidth wise. Plus it was restricted in what could or couldn't be done without major programming. It was just a case of "while I am replacing the waterpump, I might as well replace the serpentine belt too". (Think cars)
The new software was coming reguardless, the recent outage just hurried it along faster, thats all.
If your still looking for the old info from the past, I would suggest trying the link below.
http://www.archive.org