The resulting rather severe write-up of the topic (by Bourbaki) entirely rejected one approach in vector calculus (the quaternion route, that is, in the general case, the relation with Lie groups). They instead applied a novel approach using category theory, with the Lie group approach viewed as a separate matter. Since this leads to a much cleaner treatment, there was probably no going back in purely mathematical terms. (Strictly, the universal property approach was invoked; this is somewhat more general than category theory, and the relationship between the two as alternate ways was also being clarified, at the same time.)