It's more about insiders in general this year: Every Direct that's leaked were touted as being Generals, but then wound up being something completely different. I don't think anyone truthfully knows 100% what's going on at Nintendo right now and Emily Rogers' news this morning already confirms some suspicions I've been having about the extent of how hard they were hit by things this year. I just don't think there's that much to show.
Not to mention we have sources back from earlier this year, who are the original sources for the Mario Remasters, supporting Paper Mario (which happened), no E3 Direct (which happened), no E3 replacement for all of summer (which is proving true so far), more major announcements to be shadow dropped on twitter (has proven true thus far), and Pikmin 3 (was confirmed and shadowed dropped in a tweet, just as original sources claimed).
Then there's the Partner Showcase format, which was introduced as something new and was confirmed by Nintendo to be a series, which implies that there would be more of them. Pikmin 3 was also announced just a few weeks ago before rumblings of a Direct began, and I honestly do not believe Nintendo has enough to show right now that they just dropped Pikmin 3 two or so weeks before they had a major presentation coming. Major presentations like a Nintendo Direct aren't just cobbled together: It takes planning with partners and is done ahead of time to make sure everyone is on the same page and that regional marketing knows what to push. Looking at all these things in play at the moment, I personally don't see this E3 Replacement the fanbase wants right now coming any time soon.