Even with a pitch count rule, I would want a max innings rule. The act of warming up, going hard, sitting, warming up, going hard, sitting, should not be cycled through but so many times. It's nice if a kid is efficient but you have to end the repeating of that cycle at some point no matter how low his pitch count might be. Also bear in mind he probably threw 25 pitches pre-game and another 60-70 in his pre-inning warmups. Those are not as stressful as game pitches, but they aren't nothing, either.
I do think a pitch count would ideally become part of the rule but I think the VHSL came to the conclusion that enforcement would be a nightmare -- and I don't disagree. The innings limit is easier to verify and, while it might not be a perfect rule, it does represent a substantial improvement over the way things were. I suspect the VHSL wanted to avoid having the perfect be the enemy of the good, as the saying goes. For example, had the new rule not been there, who knows if that other kid would've been pulled even after 130 pitches. At least this way, he had to come out and everybody knew it.
As for catchers, I have zero concern over a kid returning a ball 130 times after pitches. We are not talking about the same thing at all, when you compare throwing at max effort off a mound to flipping a ball back and maybe throwing hard 25 times out of all those.