Technically there's nothing wrong with the codgy old techy's mentality of "always start fresh" there's less reason for it every passing year.
I won't reinstall for every patch, however the EA is a different build and probably was on a different branch than their main build on an environment they don't have as much control as their internal network.
The old EA that was branched out for so long then will be back in with many new stuff, new improvement in AI, ragdoll, maybe the some other core or engine things, ... it's different than a long continuous stream of patches overtime.
So just for the release, better safe than sorry and yeah I agree with you but
Old habits, ... 
