I'm not sure if it's powercreep. It's more like "oh fuck, we need to start giving new players SOMETHING useful or they'll get crushed and leave the game!"

Games always bleed players, and thus only stay alive if new blood keeps entering the fray. Kamihime on DMM is so old now that new players will see an immeasurably powergap between them and older players. This is a huge problem.

The solution? Giving R Hime C type debuffs (this has happened multiple times) and making some really good SR Himes. None of these are good enough to make it to the old player teams, but they help newer players immensely.