Were it meant for NiM and it wouldnt be droping in highlighted HM dont you think?
Bioware WANTS casual ppl to be able to get that gear without much effort.
There is no such thing as nightmare pugging and so there is no conflict between casuals having 224 BiS, and NiM progression, casuals dont do progression.
Nobody will take a john doe in 224 to nightmare unless they know the person or is friend of a friend etc, pugging for NiM is like that last measure you will take.
Bioware should have had NiM mode drop 224 all along but thats about it, it would have been smart to launch couple new ops with kotfe, i think they clearly lost a golden egg here, but they made this choice so we have to wait for either a new tier of gear or new tier couple with new ops, i prefer the latter obviously.