I agree with the OP, but for a different reason. I play the game with a couple of friends, and we'd like to take a crack at the 'higher' Ifrit, but we wouldn't mind not getting the same types of drops as "hyper" Ifrit. We do want to see how the fight's like, but there's too few of us to do so. Having to party up with 5 strangers or joining a random linkshell isn't ideal for us.

But hey, I guess Yoshida doesn't want all content to be accessible by everyone. Hopefully they'll implement some low-man friendly content later on.