what changes in Reddit policy have evolved right now from this subreddit?

Zero. This subreddit, and the normal users that make up the reddit community, were completely ignored by the admins and power moderators. Our concerns were not viewed as important enough to these people to even warrant a response in their 'apology'.

That is why I think it is important for us to continue working towards identifying and bringing to light the issues that concern normal users. Admins and Moderators may have all the power, but at the end of the day their power is absolutely useless without a large and active user base.

If one were very cynical one might say that the above translates to "This is a place where disgruntled users can blow off steam while we power-mods pursue our own agenda"

That is exactly what we aim to be. The power mods were allowed to dominate the conversation, and used this event to further cement their grip on power. These people do not have the best interest of the communities they oversee, they are only worried about furthering their own agenda. The admins and the media played right along with it.

I think it's important to highlight that almost none of the articles (or posts by members of /r/defaultmods) written about the protest mention anything other than the issues raised by moderators. This is something we should make an effort to change.

What changes resulted from the blackout? I see some news articles which is positive - but what really changed? Victoria is still fired. Ellen is still CEO. No significant subreddits remain blacked out. Reddit has made no policy changes (save for some 'promises' to power-mods) since the day before the blackout began. So what has specifically changed today ?

Absolutely nothing was accomplished in the way of achieving results for the average reddit user. This is what we will work on going forward.