What your friend told you is based on nothing more than fan fiction, written and drawn by one of the guys who used to do art for some of the MYP comics and merchandising, and who helps run he-man.org, it is in no way official or a part of any real form of continuity. Unless you, as a fan, want it to be I guess. It's available to read online if you're interested, though I'd have to look for the link...
Then again Masters of the Universe has had so many different continuities over the years now, via the original 4 vintage minicomics, the very different vintage minicomics that followed, original cardbacks, dc comics, marvel/star comics, filmation cartoons, live action movie, 2002 cartoon, new adventures cartoon, and now classics cardback bios, that frankly there is no one true definitive continuity anyway, so most people tend to mix and match based on their own tastes.
I guess Classics is trying to address that with their bios and unfolding storylines, drawing elements from various continuities into this new Classics continuity, but whether fans will ever take that as the final word on MOTU continuity at this point seems rather doubtful to be honest.
Anyway the reason that Teela has the snake armor and title Warrior Goddess is because in the original vintage figure line Teela was originally supposed to also be, perhaps even without her full knowledge, the warrior goddess, according to the original Teela concept. This was way before filmmation, back when He-Man was basically a Conan clone who left his tribe in search of adventure. In fact things were pretty much in a constant state of flux in that first year (and one could argue, even after...
), as the snake armored (warrior) Goddess was shown with green skin in her minicomic appearance, when she gifted the armor and weapons to He-Man. Then again these early comics were rife with colouring mistakes, many of which fans argue the legitamacy of to this day. As things soon changed from the original concepts and ideas of the original 4 minicomics, Teela morphed into the character fans are more familiar with today, while the Goddess character morphed into a seperate character altogether, instead becoming The Sorceress, and the snake armor was rarely referred to or used from that time on. However as the vintage figure came with the snake armor and staff, it only made sense for mattel to include that stuff when releasing the classics version of Teela.
What can I say, I was a MOTU kid growing up...
