It's certainly within the realm of possibility- the Falcons seem to have looked to prior designs when making their 'totem' Mechs of the Dark Age, with the Eyrie being a natural evolution of the Cougar-XR, and the Shrike being unmistakably a long-range take on the Onager. (The Gyrfalcon seems to have been based on the nightmares of every single Mechwarrior ever). So following that, it makes sense that their new heavy would be based on the lessons learned from the previous one- the results for the others worked out pretty well, after all.
