I think a lot of these companies let go of team leads and just decided they could do without. They had the biggest salaries and likely no respect from the higher ups. In my experience with big projects this position is extremely important because it keeps the team on task and they are able to coordinate with other team leads. If you just have a handful of junior employees, they may be doing work, but it's not actually moving the project forward. Often time these leads are still doing code review or even writing code (or the equivalent work product in their division), so it's not like they're just in meetings all day. They actually know and do the work, but they're able to keep the group organized. I'm guessing those are the positions they're rehiring.

The hyperlinked article in that section goes into a little more detail, but I'm guessing based off what I've been hearing from the industry.