Yes this is very true, but calling it hardfork and upgrade at the same time is not wrong either. Because essentially, hardfork means to be an upgrade. It's just because of those chain split, many people only knew it as something 'bad' instead of a 'good' one.
that is technically, but fundamentally the price might move out of our expectation.
do not forget the fact that they are going to migrating their system from PoW to PoS in the future, and this upgrade means to soften it.
IF the transition is happening in a couple of months later, there will be a huge fud wandering about in our space. Because the majority people until today still mining it, and they will be pissed off because of this transition.