I can't speak to the company or your experience, but I recall MSFT doing a bunch of outreach a couple of years ago for Windows Phone - free devices, etc. Large companies often have silos with their own focus - getting one to adopt the practices of the other may be difficult.
Maybe reengaging or conversing with one of the WP dev evangelists might make additional progress - maybe not immediately, but establishing a relationship, comtinual dialogue, and persistence can sometimes help turn a large ship.
One problem I had with the WP dev evangelists is that they seems stuck in the quantity over quality kind of mentality.
I'm pretty sure today it is clear that the number of apps in the store is not important compared to say, what apps are in the store. but till today, I still see campaigns by the local WP dev evangelists putting out contest to promote people submitting as many apps as possible (e.g. giving a prize for submitting 5,10,20,50 apps, etc).
I had been an active MVP before then and already knew a lot of people within. I'd say your assessment is right though, they had specific ideas on how to make WP successful and that's what they were going to stick to (largely by spending money, ie, "buying" Nokia).
Even now, despite poor sales (presumably), calling their agility glacial would be over complementing them.
Maybe reengaging or conversing with one of the WP dev evangelists might make additional progress - maybe not immediately, but establishing a relationship, comtinual dialogue, and persistence can sometimes help turn a large ship.