If you're unfamiliar with Advance Wars, one of the main mechanics is referred to as CO powers, and are effectively your fighting game super meter for your full army.
Gameplay from the treehouse shows one of the commanders, Eagle, using their Power, Lightning Drive. The interesting thing here is that this was during a mission from AW 1, when Eagle's power was named Lightning Strike. When AW 2 introduced a second level of powers, most characters kept the name and effect as their level 1 power and received a new level 2 power. Eagle instead had Lightning Strike buffed into filling his higher-level slot, with a new lower-level power in Lightning Drive.
Here's the interesting bit: AW2 lightning drive is completely different mechanically from lightning strike, so it would be more consistent if it had the old naming style. But AW2 lightning drive also sucked, so its mechanics were replaced in AW3/AWDS. By, wouldn't you guess, a weaker version of lightning strike. Which is exactly what AW1 Lightning Strike was. So the renaming makes everything completely consistent if Eagle happens to use his AWDS powers instead of his AW2 ones.
This is nowhere close to confirmation of anything, but the possibility exists that characters may not have their original stats. (honestly, it probably needs it to have decent online competition. Classic AW is extremely unbalanced)