Yes it did. The rule change ended the profoundly negative winning method of a team scoring a goal and then killing the game by passing the ball between defenders and the goalkeeper, who could scoop it up under any pressure. It isn't an overstatement to say this fundamentally altered the game.
Ok, so you have a different definition of 'fundamental' to me. My definition of fundamental change isn't "At the end of a game the team that's ahead passes the ball around in a slightly different way to waste time", that type of time wasting still occurred (and still occurs), just without the goalkeeper.
