The primary intent was to keep it contained for technical reasons and to stop it from being able to be insta-completed, which would turn Resource Wars into a potentially massive min/LP/etc. farm that could be used to move (potentially) infinite amounts of minerals easily around the cluster, which would also take away sites from newer players.
Beyond that, it allowed the content to be better tailored for a smaller section of people, helped to hopefully prevent leeching, and took away the problems of “contesting” that we see in Incursions which they didn’t want to have to handle in something that is very directly aimed at the Lvl 1-3 mission running ‘gap’.
In order to counteract the safety that this provided, they used a gated system so there would be a very specific and easily campable warp in for those wishing to gank (compare this to missions, for example), alongside making the deadspace drop quickly after site completion to allow the potential for warp-ins post completion, and forcing movement between systems to find new sites. Obviously, it is still ‘safer’ in some regards, but the fact that CCP had thought directly about the options they were giving to gankers is something I’m very happy to see.
The main thing I (and the CSM) will be looking for is the overall wealth generation that these things provide. We were given a benchmark of “below level 4’s” and we think that’s a healthy risk/reward balance for them. If that ends up not being the case as people learn to blitz them, then we’ll likely have to reconsider our positions.