There are times when you fight against people who you know are going to age die, rather than con die. A good example would be many assassins who lean towards assassinating rather than fighting. A combat tactic with these people when playing a shaman is to go for the wither to discourage assassination attempts. There needs to be some risk involved in an assassination attempt, and with a quality player behind the assassin, there is virtually no risk in going after a shaman. Shaman need some way to discourage assassination attempts by adding a bit of risk to the attempt.

My trying to kill them by going after their age is no different then them going after my con to try and get rid of me. Admittedly, I think everyone can agree it's best if people don't die off at 70 hours, but that is far from common. I would be interested to hear why you think it is worse to age someone than to kill them.

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"Its almost the same thing as having Kansetsuwaza permanently weakening ones wrists after they have had it applied a dozen or so times. Maybe someone cant dual wield anylonger or hold a shield..."

In reality, it's exactly like permanently taking away a portion of someone's con when you kill them. You might make the argument that you actually have to kill someone to take away con, rather than land just one skill. Both assassinate and power word kill do that though, and I would wager the saving throw for killing someone on a power word kill is somewhat similar to the saving throw for getting aged by wither.

Just my 2 cents.