Would a car fit on a cycle path? Motorbikes are multi-horsepower veichles, even the off road bikes for teenagers (85cc) are 25-30 horsepower. Or 18 kilowatts at the conservative end of the measure. You occasionally see those on some cycle paths I use. Even the no motorbike signs arent exactly prohibitive in their wording, stating (pretty much) verbatim "If your motorcycle causes distress or alarm to a member of the public it may be confiscated"
So 18,000 watts, top speed of 60-70mph (and thats the low end of the scale) compared to 500 15.5 or 20 if laws were relaxed as well as the weight (about 70kg, again low end of the scale) an apples to oranges comparison and utterly inane, like saying "why cant planes be allowed to take off and land on motorways because they have wheels?"
If somebody is tearing down a cycle path at 30-40mph on a 70kg dirt bike and hits a pedestrian, its not going to end well for either of them. If someone is cycling at 20mph, motor or not, they have a much better chance of stopping and the lower weight as well as speed means significntly less energy transfer if there is a colission.
So I'll say again, apples to oranges.
500 watts is still less than 1HP, a cheap throttle is safer than a cheap pedal assist sensor. The latter being my own experience, though I'd love to see if there was published data on it.
My opinion would also be that if manufacturers (big ones like Bosch at that) are having to find workarounds to the regs, they're restrictive to the point that they're maybe fit for purpose in Denmark and the Netherlands where you're cycling on flat ground, but in the UK, a lot of which is hilly, more power, even if it's not sustained power, is kind of needed.
I'd also assume that lawmakers made the same mistake I did at first with me thinking I'd need to get a 1kW motor because in my head I just compared to 3 phase industrial motors (lathes, mills, drill presses) which run at continuous power, or maybe the lawmakers were smarter than me which is why they capped it at continuous and not peak.
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