Okay, first off: thank you very much for this, this is a really interesting topic!

I personally enjoy such changes, especially if they remove or correct unrealistic stereotypes and such.

As I rarely have ever seen old vs. new versions of the games I own, I don’t have an example fitting your description really. The only similar situation I can think about is Everdell which doesn’t fit the “that most die hard board games might miss” part because the change was basically a free add-on, kinda:

Everdell has a set of cards called “Husband” and “Wife” in the original release. These cards are special in the regards that they can share a space usually limited to one card and also get you more victory points when played that way.

Later on they released a little add-on pack that came free with your next add-on orders that changed these cards to “Harvester” and “Gatherer”, and each of them is available in a “male-looking”, “female-looking” and “gender-neutral-looking” variation, so you can basically mix and match them to represent whatever way you want. (and some more cards so you can even write your own names on the card, but that’s just a bonus.)

This optional change is also represented in the (quite good) videogame adaption of the game.

At least in some videogame forums this “obviously” caused some people to complain about “wokeness” and shit, like it seems to happen all the time. But while I personally don’t mind if a game doesn’t “represent” me personally, I still think it’s an awesome option and heck, everyone can even choose to use it or not, so, as usual, silly complaints. I like it. (Even though I prefer the original (husband/wife artwork, but that’s a different topic.)