> using EFI+btrfs boot volume. No LVM used, just GPT on NVMe.
Yes, this change was introduced to address the problem as seen on LVM-backed /boot/grub, but that is certainly not the only configuration for which GRUB has read support but lacks write support. The fix is generic to all such filesystems that are read-only in GRUB, and that is by design.
Also,
> using EFI+btrfs boot volume. No LVM used, just GPT on NVMe.
Yes, this change was introduced to address the problem as seen on LVM-backed /boot/grub, but that is certainly not the only configuration for which GRUB has read support but lacks write support. The fix is generic to all such filesystems that are read-only in GRUB, and that is by design.