There were multiple changes to the con system over the years.
The first change was similar to what you mention, they added light blue and it's level range was set such that it overlapped the "high greens" that gave XP, and extended the lower range of XP giving mobs. This was done late Velious right before Luclin launched.
Later, they expanded the range again (PoP era as I recall) so that higher level players could still gain XP in older zones like SolB.
A lot of research went into the XP changes, and it was discovered that the current con level ranges are quite a bit larger than they should be for 1999 era EQ. The con range for a level 50 character has mobs up to 14 levels lower than the player conning dark blue, and mobs 15 to 18 levels beneath the player conning light blue. On live in 1999, a mob 15 levels below you would grant no XP. As stated above, instead of simply making Light Blue "the new green" and have it grant no XP, we drastically reduced the XP awarded for Light Blue mobs. You can still gain XP and level up on Light Blues if you want, but it'll be a lot slower than it was before the XP fixes went live.
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-Bumamgar
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