It’s both, but I think the weight of it is the latter (handicap) issue. The systems tracks you in your initial placements too hard.
It’s because Blizzard since WoW as someone pointed out makes their games addictive over having actual game integrity. This crappy business cheese bit them on the butt when they then tried to establish OWL. Poetic.
Sad part is when countless people tell them how it should be done, they can’t in their arrogance listen.