One thing that does occur to me is this is actually quite a clever device in terms of the book.
Because, it's picking up from a time when the X-men cast packed two books. Everyone's been wondering what's happened to Jubilee, Psylocke, Archangel, Forge, Banshee, Iceman, etc etc who were on the team at the time. This actually provides a legitimate excuse why some of these characters won't be around - if you know it decreased your life expectancy every time you used your powers, would you still want to be an X-man? There's characters like Bobby, who've walked away before to live normal lives, who now legitimately have a reason for wanting to call it quits.
In terms of a plot device serving the book, that's actually pretty smart.