I am not stating that I think B&M would win. B&M's original intent was to force Ed and Ben into a pyrrhic victory via dragging out one lawsuit, even if they lost that one suit.

Without being able to run up Ed/Ben's legal costs, trying to defend these suits at all is just a further loss for B&M for no benefit.

I don't think it was the deciding factor, but Ben also sent a fake Guinness award to the store around the same time they were being served. It is within the realm of possibility that they thought Ben was bluffing with the lawsuits and tried to call his bluff just to find out it was all real after they failed to appear.

Nah, the whole Guinness thing was obviously just a bit for the video. Clearly the franchise would not fall for that, when you can easily check that you were summoned to small claims (and they also probably get some form of direct communication from the court I would guess).

Legal costs for a small claims suit is tiny, and would be easily doable for them if they could win it. Again, there is a reason they lost those cases.