I think the morning show thing is fairly easy to explain. The formula for that show for a long time was three voices. Yes, the third voice was the flash guy and he often took a back-seat to the main hosts, but it was three voices. They tried to recapture that with the hire of Kevin Winter to do the flash, and apparently he didn't fit well enough, but that doesn't mean they don't still want three voices on the show. Minihane as a third wheel fills that third voice role. He's not a flash guy, so they let the morning show fit in with the rest of the day's shows using a generic, imminently replaceable update reader who is probably subcontracted from Metro or whatever the service is called these days. Minihane's already on their payroll, so it probably isn't costing them that much more to use him on the show. End result probably is two people to replace Meter's presence on the show and the net cost is probably less. Scary to think it takes two people to replace Meter, but there you go.
And maybe they think taking this tack will get under Dennis and/or Callahan's skin enough that they'll quit and save the company having to buy out or pay off the remainder of their contract. Who knows.