Okay, so, while I might quibble with your example (I see some pretty bright images in there), I think there is a backlash against highly-saturated, "ultra-color" images. This is exemplified by a comment your question (which I'm quoting in case it's later deleted):

Thank goodness the trend to make everything look like technicolor rainbows of clown vomit are behind us! If you still want to see oversaturated that look like they were shot through a CTO gel you can always just go look at the top photos on Instagram.

And that's because I think it is fair to say that there is an ongoing trend for really pushed-up saturation and color. If you ever see a photography gallery in a shopping mall, I guarantee that if you agree with the dislike for this style shown in the comment, you'll want to claw your eyes out. And a lot of top-rated photography online follows this trend.

For example, very popular photography blogger (his site predates the popularity of blogging, but that's basically what it is) can't get enough saturation — see this and this and others. Now, it's possible that this is all parody (Rockwell compares his own site to satirical-news site The Onion, but for this purpose it doesn't really matter — he's either an example or else a reference that this is a popular trend.

And, so, any backlash is easy to explain — the populist taste for bright colors may be easy to fill, but it's also easy to overdo, and an easy way to set yourself as more elite is to go against it, aiming for more natural or even subtle color.