The article acknowledges that pre-1745 Highlanders played the pipes and that chiefs actually founded colleges of piping. AND that there were "well-established pipe makers in Edinburgh." What were they making? Oboes?
And the British went to the trouble to ban the pipes after Culloden as "instruments of war" -
All that went on was the usual Victorian technical improvements which occurred in everything else around that time. Of course you had the hiatus while the pipes were banned, and things were bound to change a little, but I see this as much ado about nothing much.