It was definitely not SE's intent for people to intentionally abandon leves for better SP. However, it probably also wasn't their intent for most leves to outright suck and be a complete waste of time. So until they get their act together and improve the terrible leves like they said they would ages ago it's hard to blame anyone for using the trick. That said, there's nothing to rush to 50 to do until June... as some of us found out the hard way.