Eh, Bethesda flip-flop on that kind of stuff all the time. IIRC in Arena, the Imperial City was just in generic temperate woodland, then it was retconned in some in-game books to a jungle, then retconned again in Oblivion back to generic woodland. Same thing with the armor of imperial soldiers. Generic fantasy plate in early games, Roman in Morrowind, generic fantasy plate in Oblivion again, Roman again in Skyrim... They just can't make up their minds.

I will say this, though: It's okay to retcon old lore, but only in order to make it more unique and interesting. Retconning stuff to make it more generic and bland is a high crime.