I think circumventing the 60 vote threshold on the filibuster would do a lot of the good that filibuster removal itself would do, but I also think it likely that this is pre-fight posturing.
Democrats are targeting voting rights next, and (unlike the stimulus) it’s legislation that Republicans desperately want to prevent. Democrats can talk about removing the filibuster all they want; Republicans know they won’t do it. But Joe Manchin going on TV and saying he’s open to reforming it? That looks a lot more like some thing that could be followed through on.
They’re trying to scare Republicans away from filibustering a potential voting rights bill by showing them how they’d respond to that. If Rs don’t threaten or attempt to filibuster the voting rights bill, I suspect all this talk will go away.