2 things lead to this type of thing, and I hate to say it but us PC gamers are partially at fault.
The first driving force for publishers to do this is to give a relatively uniform experience on all platforms. So you don't have all the PC Master Race people going around saying "look how much better the game looks on PC!" And all the console gamers that don't understand how underpowered current consoles are going "why does it look better on PC, I paid $500 for this console, it should be the best!"
The second thing is what I call the GTA:IV effect. If a publisher allows the user to crank up the graphics, and then the game runs poorly on max settings even on high end rigs you get the PC gamers bitching about the game being un-optimized. It doesn't matter that the game is optimized and can play just fine on reasonable settings on mid-range and low-end rigs, that doesn't matter. It seems the only thing that determines if a game is optimized is if the max settings run at 100FPS+ on high-end single GPU rigs. The sad reality is, if Rockstar had just limited what we could set the graphical sliders to half of what they allowed, no one would have complained about the game being un-optimized. But instead, they allowed us to max out the engine's options, and people bitched because their single GPU computer couldn't max the game out at 100FPS and said the game was un-optimized. So now we get games with purposely crippled graphics to appease all the idiots that want to say anything that doesn't run smoothly set to max on a single GPU is un-optimized. This is what we get. So next time you see someone complaining about a game being un-optimized because their rig can't run it maxed out, tell them thanks for dicking over the PC game industry. This is their fault.
Finally, I'd just like to say my opinion on them purposely crippling the graphics. I don't give a damn. I could not care less. If the game is fun I'm still going to play it, any true gamer will. I play Watch Dogs on my 7850K's integrated graphics and love it. The game is fun, and I enjoy sitting on my couch and playing it with a controller. It doesn't look nearly as good as it does on my main rig, but it doesn't matter, the game is still fun.