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I agree with those that postulate that he became obsessed with hits and more and more concentrated on using the bat to place the ball, either on the ground in the holes, or as soft line drives directly over the infielder's heads. I believe a spray chart may show more clustering of hit locations.
To do this, Ichiro has been starting his swing without a real trigger, but swinging with loose arms and tight wrists to a location with a controlled bat angle. The Jeter-type swing with loose wrists cocked is closer to what he did when he first came over.
You're right that he used to "step in the bucket" to open up for inside pitches and smack them. I'm not sure, but it looks like he changed his foot placement (wider apart) so that it became harder to step towards first with a "quiet" head.
To reach the inside pitch with no stride, as in his latest stance ( and Jeter's "classic" stance), one has to be able to start the swing of the body while dropping the cocked hands vertically. To me, this is the big change. Rather the having the bat firmly controlled by the wrists, he is now losing that control in order to regain wrist load and snap, which in turn means he can keep his hands closer to the body for longer without losing control of the bat head prior to bringing it into the hitting zone.
As I predicted in another comment, this will make it harder for him to catch up to hard outside pitches, and when he does, they will have significant slice. His coordination will allow him to hit them, but his swing angle will no longer be as controlled; therefore he will likely meet the ball with his hands slightly in front of the bat head