The BSA won its supreme court case that recognized their right to set their own membership guidelines. And then the national leadership threw it away.
If you think a new group with heavy religious emphasis will appeal to boys, then you're kidding yourself. Those groups already exist in most church denominations.
Yes, they bowed to their corporate sponsors.
There are a lot of religious church sponsored groups, but I'm not aware of ones that have the purpose that BSA has. Most of them have the purpose of Christian education and fellowship.
I agree that expanding the purpose of those groups to just encompass what BSA does would not have the appeal.