The goal is to not have big holders who are not interested in the future before token achieves wide distribution and adoption.
If we are talking about devs then tokens should be released to them gradually over time so that they will not be big holders before maturity of their work and success of wide distribution. After distribution is wide and token is adopted it is safe to give them big % because they won't be able to manipulate.

For distribution I don't mean only premine, I mean at any point in time. Distribution can be bad initially, but very good later. Again example is permanent sell order which distributes over time with very bad initial distribution.

This is how NXT distribution was supposed to work, but big holders got greedy and do not sell at constant price causing pumps and dumps. They are the ones who have power to achieve wide distribution and they are misusing their power for other goals.