Well by the same reasoning, puzzles from 81 to 159 don't make sense at all.
Frankly, I can't follow your logic why #81...#159 don't make sense for you.
..., because for example puzzle 254 would have somewhat similar difficulty as puzzle 127. But once #160 gets solved, then no one would be interested in solving 81 for a half-reward but double difficulty.
Why would puzzle #127 be of somewhat similar difficulty as puzzle #254? Can't wrap my head around this statement and it puzzles me. As I'm following the puzzle's progress only out of a crypto security inspired context and don't have much knowledge about BSGS and Kangaroo, maybe you're so kind to give a brief ELI12 type answer.
Because if you want to crack a private key by the BTC address, the only option is brute-force (e.g. 160-bit security at most).
But if you have to crack a private key by its public key, Kangaroo, BSGS, or even random sampling (b-day paradox) reduces the search to square-root, so e.g. 160-bit public key is somehow 80-bit secure. But since puzzles 81 to 159 (except multiples of 5) only have the address today, then there is no public-key secure equivalent puzzle to the 81, 82, 83, or 84 bits puzzle, and so on. So, brute-force grows exponentially, but the cost to break them is way higher than the prize. If we had equivalent higher public-key puzzles (165 bits, 170 bits) etc. with public key known, than they weren't actually 180-bits secure, but 82-bits, 85 bits, etc.) - the creator moved those funds way before we had Kangaroo publicly available, so the "180+ puzzles are all actually 180-bits secure" did not make sense at the time.
Puzzle 159 with no pub key is way overkill, it's simply measuring SHA256 cracking performance, not EC security.