The developers didn't change the Burned In Address (BIA) I'm assuming that the developers just inadvertently changed the MAC address in software. You can probably find this updated address somewhere in the Windows registry and change it to the burned in address.
The technique to change the MAC address that your network interface appears to have is often called MAC spoofing. It doesn't change the burned-in address, it merely changes what other devices think your interface's MAC address is. There are legitimate and illegitimate reasons for MAC spoofing. For example, spoofing could be used to have the device look like a legitimate device on a network which uses MAC whitelisting.
But to reiterate, the address change is probably due to nothing more than sloppy coding and it probably doesn't serve any purpose even though it can cause issues such as yours.
I didn't expect we'd have an Ethernet product in 2014 that's 10Mb Half-Duplex and yet here we are
Yea, it's so 20th century "retro" technology.
Also, it appears that the email notifier firmware is first downloaded to the main board and then uploaded to the notifier board via the Omni Link serial connection. The OmniLink protocol documents indicate that the MAX speed of this serial connection is 9600 baud. This is probably the reason it takes close to an hour to upgrade the firmware.
IMHO, the upgrade to this controller board should have happened four or five years ago. That is, we should have at least been at Omni Pro III by now.
The current Omni Pro II belongs in the California Computer museum not in the Home Automation market.
