I am not sure why the power down cycle other than to prevent dump a lot in vote your self a lot, set your witnesses, take the funds out, wash rinse repeat cycle, at least that is what seems to be the reason.
There is no wait to take out rewards that people/curators/creators get, some of them only power up a little bit or only have the stuff that is powered up automatically and take the rest out. There is that wait for the 13 weeks if you are set at 100% stake option, but for the 50/50 option no wait at all for half of the rewards. If they want a shorter time for the creators, the curators, the non investors, to take out their rewards, then they could just add a few more staking options. A 25/75, a 10/90, or a 100% all liquid option.
However the main point of all this decreased time is to tie it to a popular or what appears to be a popular, HF. The next HF is supposed to be about SMT's, they, (lots of people), have been talking about SMT having it's own HF, this has nothing to do with that. It is just like a politician having a pet project that he knows will be vetoed inserting it into legislation that is popular and unlikely to be vetoed.
The investors are lending, expecting a set return, and that makes it a financial issue for them. Granted most people are investing their time for rewards and anyone that says otherwise unless they have selected the no payout option are lying to themselves as to why they are here and not somewhere else with a larger audience.
We no longer live in an era of one-size fits all, I think people just want to have options for those "life is a bitch" moments.