This is a tool, and I know I’m gonna get hate for this, BUT!
This is super useful in a secondary classroom. Let’s say you have a class that’s going to read The Outsiders. In an 8th grade class you will have reading levels ranging from 2nd grade to 12th grade. This allows the entire class to have discussions about the book regardless of the strength of their ability to read.
It could be a tool used for that discussion. Assign everyone both versions. Then discuss the ways the simplified version falls short of the original (and, because teens rebel, the ways it's better) so that by the time you're done, the kids who struggled to read the original will get more than the easy one could give them (and have really bad errors repaired) while the easy readers will have honed the ability to break down complex concepts. The middle kids will get a bit of both. And there's bound to be examples of the way words change meaning over time.
Sounds to me like it will get a lot of kids reading only the easy version even if they're capable of more. You're basically giving them the cliffnotes.
Yeah, I did, I'm just saying that unless you have a class of diligent students (in which case good on ya,) a good chunk of them will choose to ignore it and just read the easy version. It's hard enough to get kids to read what's assigned, it'll be harder to get them to read two versions of the same thing.