Saying something has been practice for as long as you can remember has to be one of the worst arguments ever used. With that logic we would still be traveling with horse trolleys and hunting animals with spears.
Of course having a better seed after regular season should be the most important thing when deciding who ranks higher. No self respecting organization uses one round playoff wins as the deciding factor. This rule should be fixed immediately.
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.