I've agreed with you at least 3 times recently. What's going on?
The only conclusion I can bring is that Gree WANTS us to stop playing. I've thought this before and dismissed it as silly, but this does seem to be in line with their new business model of completely pissing off everyone who currently spends a reasonable amount in favour of pandering to new players. I'm not even being sarcastic. One of the forum mods said there were business decisions made that couldn't be discussed openly - perhaps this is one of them.
There is no logical reason otherwise. Gems cost Gree nothing, being that they are just pixels. I'm pretty sure that not many people would ever buy full price, and even if they did, they would buy a ton less than they would with a holiday pack. So Gree makes less money, gem buyers are angry. Nobody wins. I went into this war with just enough gems for the push and it has completely taken the fun out of the event for me. I like to be able to gem at will, not pick my battles for fear of running low. I feel like they are trying everything they can to loosen the existing dominating forces in the game - starting with screwing over Rainbow with the T3 reward system, changing the event routines (including the notorious blitz>raid event) and so on, to make new players feel top achievements are more within their capabilities. That's why they don't care about the top spenders and go out of their way to piss them off.
Yet still we play. You can't get rid of us that easily Gree