The Surface RT that I tried absolutely was, and everything else I'm seeing to make sure I'm not misremembering shows that Windows RT was still locked down. So you should expand on what you mean.

Windows S Mode shows that Microsoft still thinks this is a good idea, too.

You might be mixing up Windows RT and WinRT. The former was Windows 8 for ARM with the Store as the only software source; the latter was the new set of APIs.