They were never catch-up items (they were improvements to the design of crafting professions and to help provide an edge to those that were *stuck* on non-current content, which is no longer the case even for casual guilds), and following the schedule you had planned won't make them viable catch-up gear either.
The raiding community could largely be split into two to explain this:
A) Those that don't need them and can skip them, and...
B) Those that could use the extra edge; but these raiders won't have the time to go back and hunt for singular upgrades for half of the raid while they could be working their way through current content with larger rewards waiting *for everyone*. Had the content been a LOT harder, and players were literally stuck and unable to progress into BT, then you'd have a point, but with the nerfs applied it's not the case even for the most unorganized of us (pugs will also clear BT).
While I wouldn't mirror his attitude, he's right about it being very poor design to release profession content at a time it simultaneously becomes obsolete.