The prevailing logic, I believe, is that the bonuses make you equal to a character higher than your sheet level.
Having played several ECL 2+ characters, that's more or less false, at least early on. BAB for martials, spell levels for casters, and general defense for everyone - you're not going to have enough to contribute meaningfully to what your ECL dictates you "should" be facing until you're in the level 8-11 range.
The typical experience, then, is ending up in the Mist Camp or similar and finding justification to attach yourself as a sponge until you reach the point where the importance of levels flattens. My most recent Drow, for example, ended up befriending a very high level wizard. It was perfectly natural and IC. More than one level was gained by corralling entire caves worth of werewolves and applying coup de grace to their Mass Held fluff. In between fuzzy cullings, I'd typically go back to Barovia and enjoy RPing, since I was more or less useless for actual on-level content.
For many people, though, what I've described is not too different an experience from the norm. I've never been fond of the "out of the Mists, straight to the MC" approach myself, but it's tried and true. The number of practically fresh tieflings I've seen show up there attests, anecdotally.
Regardless of your stance on the matter, though, I would not expect changes to this system. It has worked since its inception, so why change it?