Right. It also makes some classes infinitely more attractive than others - a level of fighter suddenly becomes far better than a level of any other class, because you can go immediately to the epic abilities without messing around for 20 levels.
A Wiz20/Monk1 doesn't start getting the monk's epic level abilities right away - they have to go through 19 more levels of monk first. Similarly, a Wiz20/Ftr1 shouldn't be able to grab epic fighter feats right off the bat (except with his character-level feats, of course).
J