Not sure if that was a misstatement or a mishearing, but it's not that the Photonis ECHOs (which those units have) did not make the cut for Gen. 3, but rather for the full-up "MILSPEC" 4G (formerly INTENS) rating, which is still a Gen. 2+ tube, which are more or less comparable in most aspects to Gen. 3 thin-filmed tubes except for extreme low light performance.
As I understand, the ECHO tubes are no longer solely 4G MILSPEC fallout tubes as they used to be, but they are also producing ECHO tubes "intentionally" now.
For recreational and enthusiast use, the ECHOs will likely serve you just fine, though you may need to begin using supplemental IR illumination before you would have to with a U.S. Gen. 3 image intensifier, and in darker conditions, we have found that they do not provide as much clarity and resolution as Gen. 3 image intensifiers, which can be important to (e.g.,) law enforcement users that may need to be able to distinguish between a cell phone and a firearm in a dark alley. On the other hand, they take some fantastic photographs, because of their smaller (I think that's the right comparative? I'm not a photographer...) dynamic range.
~Augee