Sounds to me not too different with the overstock situation. I feel this statement is trying to decouple counterparty and Symbiont.
yep. sounds to me they want to abandon it. it's a very polite way to say "we're done with counterparty and not interested in it anymore, we're making something cooler".
That's not what the post said at all. The technology that Symbiont has developed outside of Counterparty does not overlap or compete with Counterparty at all. They're different things for different uses, one being private network/private blockchain/permissioned access, and the other (Counterparty) being public blockchain, public ledger, open access.
It's kind of like a computer manufacturer who only made desktops now releasing their first laptop model. Sure, they're both computers, but they have different uses, and there are certain cases where one is clearly more appropriate than the other.
To reiterate, Counterparty is still being actively supported and developed (by symbiont staff members, nonetheless). You can see that just by looking at the github.