I would nearly 100% guarantee you that any “testing” accounts Demiurge have are separate from the community. To the extent that they do appreciable testing.
That just opens a gnarly can of worms otherwise - “Demiurge are intentionally beating down their users’ rosters to make them spend money on shields!” If you think there’s an uproar over what Demiurge are/aren’t doing with regard to cheaters, imagine if it were disclosed that they had a thumb on the scale.
It is well known, by their own admittance, that they have not in the past used high level accounts to test new events and such. Which is why they got blindsided with the scaling issues for certain events.