I think I'm blending two things then. I looked at a few old notes, and one of the devs replaced Topaz in Kickstart with what you see as the 1.4 font, as a way to kind of force the issue, since we hadn't really done any work to make or obtain a sans-serif font. Nobody wanted that font, which turned up the pressure.

I guess in addition to shaving the serifs off Topaz 9, I also did Topaz 8. And "Clean" was the source of the interim font, not of new Topaz. Memories fade, and thanks for the extra info.