An interesting thought:

The catch up patches are an alternative to a level up potion for 60 content. They do it so everyone can gear up & no one feels left out or overwhelmed when they hit 60/come back to the game.

Personally I'd rather work my way up from 150 to 250 bc I find it fun, but it seems people(from my experience & in general) would rather be handed their stuff so they can get to the meat of the end game only to realize there isn't much meat there..they expected a whole cow & got a rat leg.