The nerf might have been premature I agree there, but I'm guessing its to prepare for what they anticipate will be a flood of new characters through the PS4 release.

Since the nerfs will hit a hard stop, and persist through the life of the game, they might be playing with an early model of releases to make old content easier for new players years down the line. Similarly to dropping the level restrictions in FFXI to help new players through old content, XIV's 2.2 nerfs will assist new players get to new content faster than the amount of time its taken us to get to the same place.

Once the patch is live, Yoshida mentioned they'll be monitoring the content to determine where a good stop is for the Echo buffs. This might help them also determine when its a good time to make old content easier and over all improve balance for future releases.