Yes, and on that front it was absolutely a step up. However, it left a gaping hole where the SE was, and I believe it actually ran slower than the older technology.
In addition, a year later, System 7.0.1 was released, arguably the highest system useable on the Classic. It also shipped with only 1MB RAM. Anybody who tried to get by with that small amount too long for the entry price, found themselves out of luck if they needed to upgrade since it required a non-standard RAM board, whereas a Plus and SE could keep adding years past their discontinuation without any special attachments. Apple sold it as an upgradable computer, but once users upgraded it to a usable condition, they might as well have bought an LC.
Apple had to redesign the logicboard anyway. Why they wouldn't take the 16MHz bus used on the Portable and put it in the Classic at the same price point is beyond me – at a minimum, they should have offered it as an option. As it is, there was no trade off, just a step backward. I don't buy the 1.4MB drive as an upgrade feature, it had been around for 2 years at that point, and actually saved them money not to have buy obsolete 800K drives, or support them. One of the reasons I hate the Classic so much is because so many schools who had been so well served by Apple over the years, bought tons of Classics without knowing how antiquated they really were and found themselves with useless equipment just a year later, with payments still to be made on them. That's the day Apple lost to the PC, when parents started having better technology at home than the kids had at school.