Okay crazy PPS theory:
So Swindler trashes the top card of your opponent's deck and makes them gain a card.. so gets rid of something and gives back something. PPS gives out some number of d8's. That's not quite Swindling... back when it seemed like he was changing d12's to d8's in some way it made more sense. But now his role is simply to give out d8's that weren't there before. That's not really a swindle.
What if the Swindler targets a player and destroys 1d6 number of dice. Then he gives a (possibly different) player 1d12 number of d8s. That's more in line with trashing and gaining. And gaining more of a lower die sort of does the wash thing (Swindler trashes and gains the same cost).
I had a problem earlier, because if he has to do both parts of this ability, then we should have seen d8's given before. But he could have just given them to his partner the entire time.. no real downside to doing this.. more dice for the NPC's, and you can simply just roll the extra ones.. there's no real harm between rolling 3d12 and 3d12+3d8.. the second is actually better because you have a greater chance for the numbers you want.
Anyway, this was the result of me trying to think of a way for dice destroying to not be a factional ability. Does not fit with Archetype's Tactician (would be a weird thing to tack on there), or Liopoil's Ambassador (which makes sense.. he loses a die (returns to supply) and someone else gains them). Doesn't fit Hydrad's tinkerer (also makes sense, changes the die permanently), and anyway he's an IC now. I know BA is telling the truth (his makes sense, too, Arms Inspector is exactly what he does), and I am as well (and it makes some sense; Saboteur turns a card into one costing three less, I render a player unable to roll any of the three highest scoring values, effectively turning all dX dice into d(X-3) that day).
Well, like I said, crazy theory, but a bit bolstered by PPS claimed roll not doing any actual Swindling once he figured out what it is. And just having factional dice destroying doesn't quite sit well with me.. I guess it's possible, but I don't know why it would. It seems much more like it should be someone's role.