Google Adwords - first page bid estimates for PPC

As part of Google's recent changes to their PPC advertising programme AdWords they have changed the information that can be displayed in the keyword status column. The basic information that this column used to show was whether a keyword is 'Active, Paused or Inactive for Search.' A keyword could be highlighted as 'Inactive for Search' if the Max CPC bid set by the advertiser was below the minimum CPC bid set by Google.

It is this information in particular that has changed; Google choose to replace Minimum bids with first page bid estimates to help PPC advertisers obtain good positions for their ads. Minimum CPC bids still exist and can be seen in AdWords Editor, but now if a Max CPC bid is set below the Minimum CPC bid the keyword is given the status 'Active' followed by the message 'Ads rarely show due to low quality score'.

I have found that most keywords that have a low average position around 10+ a status of 'Active' followed by the message 'Bid is below first page bid estimate of XXX'. This information is definitely helpful because having your ads on the first page or higher is critical to CTR and therefore Quality Score. As a PPC Campaign Manager I thank Google for this information and only hope that their estimate in accurate.

However I have also come across several keywords that have an average position of 1-3 that also have this same status message with a First Page Bid Estimate much higher than my current bid. I don't see how this estimate can be true for so many keywords that had achieved consistent high positions with their current bid for some time. Is Google using the new First Page Bid Estimate to push up CPC's? It certainly seems to be asking me to raise bids on keywords that are already or where previously in high positions.