Sure, but the thing is ordinarily, performing as he has been, he'd have been given the chance to do bigger races where he'd be less likely to win, but could be better for him in the long run, rather than cleaning up in those small races. As it is, it's like a 2005 Murilo Fischer level outlier in terms of the calibre of the races the results were in vs. how many points were achieved (de Lie is only 20 so it's not like we can say this is an outlier because he may turn out to be elite at the top level, he's beaten some solid sprinters this year in those small races, and he's been doing it all year) - but there's also a fair few races there he wouldn't ordinarily have been in if the team wasn't farming points. He'd have gone to test his legs in races like the Tour de Pologne or Tour of Britain to help see what they have at a higher level if it weren't more beneficial for the points system to keep filling their boots in middling fields at smaller races. Plus of course the balance of points for one day races vs. stage races make it far more beneficial - (I know the dates don't match up here) why do an eight stage race (at least originally planned as such) like Britain which Gonzalo Serrano got 200 points for winning, when you could do three 1.1 races in four days like Schaal Sels, Egmont and Druivenkoers-Overijsse with 125 for each?
Andrea Guardini in 2011 won:
- 5 stages of the 2.HC Tour de Langkawi
- 1 stage of the 2.1 Tour de Qatar
- 2 stages of the 2.HC Tour of Turkey
- 1 stage of the 2.1 Tour de Slovénie
- 1 stage of the 2.1 Volta a Portugal
- 1 stage of the 2.1 Giro di Padania
That's 11 wins, plus he also had a 3rd in a stage at the .HC level and two 2nds and two 3rds at the .1 level. But Guardini almost exclusively entered stage races. I know Langkawi is massively overvalued and the field there was pretty nondescript, but it's still 5 wins at the equivalent of the .Pro level for the purpose of point comparison. In terms of the UCI standard of the race, the calibre of Guardini's wins is in fact higher than that of de Lie's.
This would have, in today's currency, been worth 217 UCI points. Barely a tenth what de Lie is worth because of the value of one-day races relative to stage races. Even if we just take de Lie's podiums (because the fact he has a bunch of other placements whereas Guardini had either bunch sprint or autobus as his only modes), de Lie's 9 wins - all bar one (which is in a stage race, so the lowest valued) at the .1 level - and three podiums are worth 1300.
So it's not just about winning, because Guardini won more and at higher UCI statuses. But a stage of a 2.Pro race is less than a sixth the value of a 1.1 race, so it's a very effective way of farming points, like going back to an earlier stage of a game to grind for XP by taking out some conveniently placed low-yield enemies very quickly, over and over again.