"What the hell was the point?"
The point is classic CAsA command and control strategy.
How best to stifle dissent?
Produce convoluted, incomprehensible, unworkable regulations that leave interpretation wide open to the vagrancies of incompetent FOI's.
Where these regulations are impossible to comply with, issue a dispensation.
Dissent can then be controlled by the threat of the dispensation being removed.
Simple and effective.