Correct. I was booked on MU9862 on Monday morning, Sunday night. Shanghai Airlines stopped flying the Monday morning flight. The options given to me were A) the Monday afternoon flight, with a long overnight layover in Shanghai, and a new Tuesday afternoon flight. B) Leave Sunday, any combination of FM/MU flights. C) Leave Tuesday, and combination of FM/MU flights. I wanted the KL flights via AMS, but they refused to route me on another airline, even the DL codeshare flight to ATL.

So I capitulated and chose Tuesday return flights. Originally, when I booked, the MU9862-MU587 was twice the price the of the MU9862-MU297. But because of the schedule change, I was able to get the MU9862-MU587 combination for no additional charge. This allowed me to eliminate a long layover (12+ hours) in PVG and a long over night at JFK (connection to a separate ticket DL flight to ATL). Downside, I came home Tuesday night instead of Tuesday morning. C'est la vie.

Generally speaking, schedule changes are fantastic if you weren't able to originally book the flights you wanted because of price. Schedule changes allow you, if you don't violate MCT or Routing Rules, to any other flights you want, assuming you stick with their flights.