Not quite. The concept for why it's being eliminated is related, but as I understand it the Oil Paint filter relied on a big subsystem called "Pixel Bender" technology. It was early work to get Photoshop to use GPU acceleration, and it's been superseded by newer "Mercury Graphics Engine" technology in Photoshop. The entire Pixel Bender subsystem, which is apparently much more substantial than just what's needed by the one filter, didn't end up fitting in Adobe's plans for where they're taking Photoshop, and would have been too expensive to continue to maintain for one filter only.
That being said, I personally would have really liked to see the Oil Paint filter re-implemented using the new Mercury Graphics Engine - or even using just the CPU (on the assumption that having a slower version would be better than not having any at all).
I'm sure it was a difficult business decision, because they know that there are people like us who had grown to like and use the Oil Paint filter.
-Noel