Bandai man, Bandai.
What
ever. The point is, they probably have their own art on file. They don't need INC.
Edit: Maybe they figured it'd match their MM9 style more ... but maybe they didn't have access to the files they probably have somewhere for some reason. Never underestimate burocracy. It's just kinda wierd that they didn't use sprites that they probably had access to.
Edit #2: Of course ... they just went with the style they used for Bass' outline in 9, the 8-bit appearance that actually counts. It was probably the background artist that designed it, although I still dunno why he'd design it as a MM edit rather than, at least, it's own unique sprite. Haste? A placeholder until they came up with something better? Because ... they really
can do better.