I have to disagree. With all other things being the same, if you replace a progressive wound armature with a retrogressive wound armature, the rotation will change since the armature polarity is reversed. See this link for more info under the section "Troubleshooting Tips for Armature Rewinds":
This would also change the relationship between armature polarity and interpole polarity so sparking would result under load.
The best way to see this is to take a sheet of lined paper and turn it sideways. Imagine that the space between the lines are commutator segments (bars). Mark a bar on your left as the positive brush location and about 10 bars to the right mark another one as the negative. Number the bars from left to right so that positive brush is #1 and negative brush is #10. Assume that the coils are wound such that if you go from the start lead to the finish lead you make a clockwise pattern. For a progressive winding, the coil start lead would be at bar 1 and the finish lead at bar 2. The next coil would start at bar 2 and finish at bar 3. Assuming current flow from positive to negative (from 1-10 in this case), the current in these coils would flow clockwise (from start lead to finish lead). For a retrogressive winding, the first coil start lead would be at bar 2 and the finish lead at bar 1, with the leads actually crossing behind the riser. The next coil start lead would be at 3 and the finish lead at 2. With a current flow from bar 1-10, the current flow in these coils would be counter-clockwise, or from the finish lead to the start lead. This results in a different armature polarity.
As for why Edison123 would want to change from one to the other, my guess is he is troubleshooting a problem and that if this change was made that it was not on purpose. Fortunately, reversing the leads at the brush box will correct this. Note that reversing the armature leads in the junction box would correct the rotation, but it would not correct the difference in polarities between the armature and the interpoles.
I hope this helps you Edison123.