They also may be using language that doesn’t correctly identify the processes (ie saying token swap when they mean cross chain atomic swap — two very technically different things that have similar names).
Indeed. As much as I do not like Justin's style of doing things, having an auxiliary set of tokens representing STEEM on the Tron blockchain yields some benefits. Having a TRC20-Steem token opens the door to Tron's smart contracts, potentially higher liquidity on exchanges and access to Tron's fanbase. More details in my recent post.
There are many things that can be said about Justin, but one thing that we can probably all agree is that he is not stupid. No businessman will buy a company just to see it fail. So far Justin has not made massive changes to his acquisitions (Poloniex and BitTorrent) and I anticipate he will do the same to Steemit. Without doubt, Justin will eventually look for ways to see how Steemit can help boost the Tron ecosystem. But so far this "partnership" seems like a win-win to me, at least in the short to medium term.