It's really funny to read these posts after I hopped back a few pages to get some more dets on these. This is EXACTLY what I was wondering about. Seems my "hmmmmmmm~" wasn't off the mark.
The posts talking about how it's much better the new style headband was have always made me wonder how it was possible. Now finding it's available as a spare for $200USD made me wonder even more. Maybe I'd like one?
See I'm actually not a hater of the current headband, I had my LCD-2.2s on last night for 3 hours, no problem. But sure I'd be happy to find something even more comfortable than the Vegan pads and headband I've got. I just don't see how the flat piece of thick, soft leather against the carbon fibre strip is going to be better than thin leather wrapped foam, with a metal band in it. What I do think, is that that guy selling leather suspension setups in the For Sale forums isn't going to need to worry about being out of business.
All Audeze has to do, to make the new headband work, is to shorten the leather strap a little bit.
HiFiMan had the same problem with their headband straps, and they released an updated strap pretty promptly. Let see if Audeze will do the same.