What was stated in the articles sounded well and good: Publish worthwhile and interesting items at prices that make them worth having. They discounted items specifically because most PCs buy items for AC, Saves and protections, Attack and damage bonuses, and stat buffs, and they wanted to give them a reason to look outside that narrow group.
The Ring of Universal Energy Resistance would be an example of an item every PC would want. So why drop the price on it? Did WOTC have too many in stock, so they priced them to move?
It's an example of place where what they said their intentions were differed sharply from what they actually did.
If they'd come up with a new and usable item pricing/creation system it would have been great. I've heard of more than a few complaints from the authors about DMG item creation, how it was rushed, how it was dumbed down, how bad it was. They had an opportunity in MIC to fix that, to publish a more comprehensive system, on where Craft Wondrous wasn't "Craft Anything", and where a Ring of True Strike, unlimited uses per day, wouldn't price out at 2,000 gp.
What they did was publish a discount toy shop, with no attempt to fix the system they were complaining about.
But "cheap power ups" have been the selling point for most of the Complete books, have in fact become the trend in the game's development over the years.