Ha ha, I love these posts where no one knows the actual answer because they weren't there, and can't be bothered to research it.
The reason stats do jack right now, is because when they did, everyone was pumping stats to where you could kill pretty much anything.
Back at launch being under rank 20 and having 2k+ hp was the norm.
Tanaka didn't know how to fix it, so he basically removed it by gimping it to hell