Let's not forget Joe Quesada also explicitly said, when taking over, he wouldn't do any Mephisto powered rewrites. The exact quote even refers to Mephisto in terms of "what he's not going to be using to retcon things"

Also, realization I just had. This is a way of "retconning" the deal with Mephisto without actually saying "ok, we did a terrible thing, we are literally turning back the clock so it didn't happen"

For you see, Octopeter isn't Peter Parker. So he can TOTALLY have a relathionship with Mary Jane now.