That's your local group. The setting is very explicitly horror. The fact that most people who escaped Earth are from the global north is a critique of how global north nations are refusing to address or actively exploiting global warming. Neotenics are considered creepy in-universe by some people because what kind of person would want to run around in a body that looks like a pre-pubescent child? But the potential for horror is very much the point. Eclipse Phase is an extremely, extremely dark setting that explores both the risks and benefits of how leftist societies might deal with radical transhumanism and potential new technologies, alongside the unrelenting, gut churning horror of how capitalist societies would invent new forms of exploitation and violence using those same technologies. People creeping on Neotenics is... pretty far down the list of routine horrors faced by Firewall agents. Eclipse Phase frequently makes "I have no Mouth and I must Scream" look cheerful and optimistic.

As for why Neotenics are in the setting at all - Neotenics were built because a smaller body means you need less food, less air, and less pressurized volume in a space ship. It's a highly efficient way to still wear a meat body while min-maxing your available resources in space. People who are more comfortable operating in synths/robots or as infomorphs would skip having a biological body all together and go full digital, but many, many people are not willing to live like that just for more fuel and energy efficiency. Neotenics were built as a compromise solution.