Absolutely correct. Especially when you consider that a lot of those “massive battle” numbers are folks with half a dozen alts in the battle, because it moves so excruciatingly slowly that you can multi-task as many as you have on hand.
However CCP is of the opinion that because these battles drive news stories once or twice a year, and because virtually all the people engaging in them are paying for subs, then these are the features they push the game towards. The rest of the game is currently just a leftover kept limping along on to rope players into ending up in occasional high-profile nullsec battles.