I'm rather sympathetic to the argument of targeting actually used BPPs and think the benchmarks should reflect that (so "low" should be something like covering ~90% of actual images rather than some more arbitrary number), as it's another point of confusion counting against this great new format.
Though I miss your last point - how would human experience be harmed by allowing using low BPPs?
> only complicate coding at bitrates above 1.5 or so
these features could be disabled at higher bitrates as they're not helpful there?
> only complicate coding at bitrates above 1.5 or so
these features could be disabled at higher bitrates as they're not helpful there?