There is no way many people on the East Coast are going to stay up past the 1am start time currently scheduled for node wars. It just doesn't make sense.

Yup!  Totally agree.  For my guild, and I am guessing many guilds, the most recent change just cut the nodes we can bid on in half.  Making the 19:00 is better for us but... that just brings us back to pre daylight savings... Not really a fix.