Are you saying that M are unlikely to be using FFT? I would be surprised as I thought that FFT operations were built native into many DSP processors so M would probably make use of them if FFT allowed M to make a better sounding upsampler.
Without access to their code, you can only infer certain things from the behaviour. It would appear that Meridian are using a low pass filter. Why this is used we cannot know. In the case of the apodizing filter the use of a minimum phase low pass causes a dramatic drop in pre-echo.