I don't know how much it's really good instincts and how much it's just that there's some chaff on the Modern ban list and some of it inherently lines up with overall strategies and archetypes that we also happen to discuss. Might be a bit of both.
I do think that, while I don't generally try to predict Modern ban list changes, JTMS and BBE are both cards that I would have thought were unban candidates. JTMS fulfills the dual purposes of giving control decks in the format something that applies pressure and selling packs of Masters 25 like hotcakes. BBE being banned was a relic of a more tumultuous time in the format's history. And without making predictions, I do think it's noticeable that there's a pattern in the cards that get banned vs. don't get banned and the ones that reside on the list permanently vs. the ones that are considered for being unbanned. WotC want to guide the format more towards Summoner Wars: the Gathering and are terrified of unorthodox play patterns, especially combo decks. BBE as a combat-oriented creature with a card advantage EtB ability was an obvious candidate for unbanning. Rite of Flame, as a potential combo enabler, is locked in as verboten.
I talked about it some in that analysis thread for the format, but I've never really had a clear and comfortable ideal of what Modern should be. I joked that Counterspell should be reprinted in Dominaria, but that WotC are too scared of the card to ever do it. And then I learned that some Modern players are dead-set against such a possibility and emphatically believe that Counterspell in a Standard-legal set would "ruin" Modern. I actually don't know what to think about that. Thoughts have ranged from "But it's barely played at all in Legacy" to "It really would be a game-change in Modern" to "a format that would be ruined by the existence of Counterspell deserves to be ruined" to "well, that's pretty mean of me" and from there it just goes all over the place. I'm at a loss on that stuff, I guess.