Well your last paragraph is main reason why people freeze, on popular servers where there is more then one Sage War instance, people don't want to be in one with 50k power guy and 10 35k ones who have refines coming out of their ears and use 3 rare ninjas team.

So they see whats the max level for not going into top Sage tier is and stay under it. But if your server only has enough people for one Sage War instance then freezing is completely pointless.