I think you're right and I hold out hope that the new shades of matte lipstick (Prince Noir!) will have a better formula. In general, I've found the mattes they've come out with this year- Mehr, Yash, Candy Yum Yum- have been better than their previous matte formulas. The problem, I'm guessing, with Smoked Purple is that it already exists, so they're probably not changing anything for this collection.
What's worse is that this came out with a launch (Info: http://colorstorycollections.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-mac-pro-shades-july-2007.html) where all the matte shades were drier even than regular Mac mattes. I have a couple of those colours and love them dearly, but they're tricky to work with. I've swatched Smoked Purple, although I didn't buy it and it seemed to have the same issues as its brethren.