The intent was not unreasonable from the point of view of self-preservation, but also in the public interest. Sensitive patents are those that would attract a lot of attention, and a patent granted on anti-gravity that was obviously inoperable brings bad publicity to the entire patent system. Moreover, sensitive patents tend to promise extraordinary benefits, and so even though a patent is not intended to be a validation, many people regard it is as such, and so it can be (and is) used to facilitate fraud. For these reasons, additional scrutiny was warranted for such applications -- not to subject them to additional rules, but to ensure that existing rules were adhered to, since individual examiners can easily slip up now and then.
Thus turning the whole patent system on its head. Rather than protecting innovators and granting a temporary monopoly to an individual or a corporate assignee, the US Patent and Trademark Office is preserving its own credibility by avoiding "sensitive" patents under the supposed banner of Public Interest. And your lame extension is that this avoids misdirection of investment to areas not presently within the dogmatic canon. The failure to properly recognize areas of progress that cannot easily be deduced by those "practiced in the arts" is a significant problem that many engineers and scientists would argue should not be resolved or policed by bureaucrats but by the free exchange of ideas and of market forces. It is a rare, but quite perfect example of misapplication of power. That is potential fraud is given as the excuse to impede normal progress through the disclosure process.