The 'new' ruling is the correct one. The fact that they note balance is meh. However, it's fortunate that they actually made it consistent.
There have been other comments that the cannot vs can isn't what the disagreement is about. It is, see below.
Recall: Golden rules, cannot is absolute.
Assume you can take more than 1 to other hull zones. You take damage you want to redirect (more than 1), Hull zones ABC, and D (Defending), B opposite D.
Let's say 4 for the moment.
Put 1 damage on A, B, C, D.
In that case, you have taken 3 damage to hull zones other than the defending hull zone.
Contradiction with the cannot.
The only situations that do not violate it: 0 or 1 redirected. Therefore, you can only redirect one damage to ABC.
The original ruling followed the Golden rule as well. You still could not shift more than 1 damage per hull zone. You just got the shift it between all hull zones.
Oh, and how are you going to tell FFG what is the "right" ruling? They specified that they changed the ruling for balancing purposes.
No, it did not. (Learn to Play < Rules Reference < Card < "cannot" effect on card) That had Card > "cannot".
Allow me to quote:
If a card effect uses the word “cannot,” that effect is absolute.
Thus "it cannot suffer more than 1 damage on hull zones other than the defending hull zone." should be absolute. The other card allowing "you can choose more than one hull zone to suffer damage," with the same trigger. "cannot" > "can"
If it had said "a hull zone" on XI7, the original ruling would be correct, because there would be no contradiction. However, XI7 uses the plural hull zones, creating a contradiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_contradiction
If a ruling is inconsistent with other rules, it should be pointed out as inconsistent. If they had chosen to errata it, that's fine, as they've done in some cases, such as "Most Wanted". When they did add it to the FAQ, under card clarifications, they got it right. So far I haven't encountered any other cases of it, which is a good thing, it indicates that they've thought about the rules. They could have put it in the errata to change the way it works, instead they put it in card clarifications where it is, which maintains consistency. FFG can errata them or rule on them as they see fit, It doesn't prevent me from calling their rulings wrong by the rest of their own rules. If any others like this are brought to my attention, I'll call them out as to why they are not consistent with the rest of the rules.
That's a long winded way of saying: If I see they make a mistake, I will say it's a mistake.