Can't help you with awnings, but you should invest in some cellular shades for your windows. We have the same problem, the entire length of our house, with the rooms we spend the most time in, faces west and from about 1pm-740pm it gets uninterrupted full sun, and brother it is HOT. Even with regular blinds you can feel the temperature increase from one side of the house every step as you walk towards the other side.
Cellular shades are a GAME CHANGER. They fold up into basically nothing when not in use, and when you pull them down the heat stays out. It rules, and it's a very affordable and easy to install fix while you build your awnings. You will not regret them.
Not to be pessimistic, but this is also a somewhat common strategy to test how shitty you can make something. Basically, intentionally make things worse to test the impact on revenue. If profits don't drop keep it that way. If the bottom line starts going down, slowly increase the quality again until they stabilize. It's likely that changes were not reversed, they were just improved over the trash they made them for awhile. Chipotle has mastered this process. Raise prices, reduce quality, raise quality slightly but not to previous benchmark, repeat.