Or "Miyamoto hated Donkey Kong Country to the point of saying people will put up with bad games if the game looks good" despite the quote never being said in the interview cited.

Miyamoto's in Perfect Dark, for crying out loud!

Another thing to remember is that Rare back in the days had a general habit of changing projects mid-development when they felt the current direction wasn't working. So in reality the turbulent development of Dinosaur Planet was nothing new.

When Rare was known for their original games, it really should make some sense that they were seriously not under any obligations from Nintendo to transform Dinosaur Planet into a Star Fox game. Nintendo just gave them the opportunity to do so, and if you like making money, you say yes.

The few interviews I read that are way after the fact and they all sounded they weren't super mad of that, one says they were a bit disappointed due to attachment to the project as it was but it never sounded like Nintendo was breathing down their necks.

It was just a mutually agreed decision.