You didnt understand by what I said about high end balance affecting design. Also the AoE cap exists to stop degenerate gameplay like Ion said.
What I meant is that in the past they pandared to tryhard wannabe elitist and cared about high end balance so they pushed for a more homogenized game, focused on mirroring and creating similar skills with similar purpose so high end balance is better.
They realized this is futile since in an rpg there will never be truly good balance, which is why covenants are so creative and different, abilities will vary a lot at high end in terms of performance but they dont care that is the case for the high end, their goal is to make a fun rpg with many unique and interesting abilities instead of playing it safe and making things similar.