At the moment the satiation changes paired with the hunger meter can serve to slow down progression and keep us in the spruce cap stages for a little longer, but what will happen a year from now when a developed character is killed and is reduced to 45% or even 10% of all of that slow-burned growth?
Sure you could say that drinks can fix satiations outside of their time gate, but the hunger meter then steps in to knock you back down again.
Go quest, you might say.
It's one thing to actively quest down your hunger meter when grinding out a few hundred in a stat, but when you get into the big boy numbers it just isn't going to even out or get to a point where you can actually progress more than you're toiling away at keeping your meters healthy. When you eat 5 pies and get slapped down to >50% satation or you're forced to drink and go quest again to stay in the golden zone of the hunger meter you will just never have enough time in the day to become competitive again. People who haven't died before would still be questing actively as well; forever miles ahead.
Loftar has said that he'd like to see how drinks play out in practice, but I think the writing is already on the walls in this case.