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In The Secret of the Old Clock, a trapped Nancy at one point says: "Archimedes didn't know what he was talking about when he said the world could be moved with a lever." Compare the revision: "That old Greek scientist, Archimedes, didn't know what he was talking about when he said the world could be moved with a lever."
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I agree that isn't a good change. For one, it's unnatural, who says "That old Greek scientist..."? And if the reader doesn't know who Archimedes was, informing the reader that he was an old Greek scientist doesn't give the reader useful information.
But it's an example of a change that the publisher demanded and the author went along with. It was the print world that brought this change. With a work under copyright, if a change is made, that's the only version that is going to be available. With public domain works, a changed work is going to be drowned out by the original version. If I go onto Amazon and look for a public domain book, the original version is going to be the version at the top of the search, priced at $0.00.