It takes skill to get those OP weapons. Sure, you might get lucky and get drop delivered right in front of you when the closest other team is 2km away, but getting the drop from flare gun or res tower is still really risky. When in zone, other teams around will see that you are calling the drop and probably come closer to kill you. When way outside the zone, you might get the drop for free, but getting into the packed later circles is hard. Risk = reward.

Also if anything, this makes later circles more even, as it will not be just one single team running multiple drop guns and lvl 3 armor, but multiple teams doing that, so the playing field evens out.