Crafter's backpacks discrepancy

When the crafting backpacks originally released, they were "leveling gear" so they were several levels ahead of a normal item. But the normal level cap is 80, so this allowed the exotic (final tier) backpacks to exceed the normal stats of max gear. As an apparent tradeoff, the level was reduced to 78 so that one could only upgrade it with sub-80 jewels. In total, this made them function essentially the same as L80 gear, with a few trivial extra stat points (which could be safely ignored because it was still less than ascended backs and thus not actually in excess of normal gear limits).

Anyway, at some point, the stats on back items were upgraded. I don't know if or how well this was documented, but the only reflection of this change that I can find is an edit on the wiki that occurred in June 2015, possibly part of the systemic changes that led up to HoT. However, the crafting backpacks were not updated with this change. Their base stats since have had less value than a normal L80, and combined with the inability to equip a L80 jewel, this puts them significantly behind in utility.

It's also worth asking whether it was originally intended for them to be upgradeable once more (e.g. to ascended) because the current items still say they can be used for crafting. But after so long I assume there are no plans for that or they have been canceled. So, if these backpacks are at a dead end, can we just have them changed to standard L80 gear?