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According to the table on the first page of the playtest, level adjustments for RP go down as your characters get to higher and higher levels. While this works just fine for parties in which all PCs have the same level adjustments, what about a party with three humans and a drow noble (for example)? The drow noble's level adjustment is overcome at 6th level, so does that mean that the drow noble is now less powerful than the human PCs, because she is a level behind? And what about races with a higher level adjustment and thus a larger power disparity?
According to the table on the first page of the playtest, level adjustments for RP go down as your characters get to higher and higher levels. While this works just fine for parties in which all PCs have the same level adjustments, what about a party with three humans and a drow noble (for example)? The drow noble's level adjustment is overcome at 6th level, so does that mean that the drow noble is now less powerful than the human PCs, because she is a level behind? And what about races with a higher level adjustment and thus a larger power disparity?
being a level or 2 behind the rest of the party isn't that big of a weakness since you will catch up
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The system in the sidebar isn't level adjustment in the 3.5 sense, rather it modifies the level that the party is for creating balanced encounters (the party APL). You also average it out to calculate them. So in your example you have three humans (10 rp each) and a Drow Noble (22 rp). This makes a total of 52, divided by 4 is 13, rounded to the nearest ten is 10, so not modified.
If you had two of each (64 total, average 16, rounds to 20), you would use the bottom line, so whilst the party was 1st level, you would design encounters as the were 2nd level, at 2nd level as if they were 3rd and so on. At 6th level the significance of the Drow's powers reduces, so you revert to doing it directly at the same level, so design encounters as if the party were 6th level and so on.
Every creature in this system has the same number of hit dice at each point of experience, it's just recommended that they face more difficult encounters to balance out their extra advantages. It might be a bit wonky in scenarios where you have a significant disparity between one party member and the others, but that can often come up between different classes and combinations too.
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The Level Adjustment isn't for the character, it's for the CR of the encounters.
You add that to the level of the PC(s) and figure out their Average Party Level with that as opposed to subtracting levels from characters and all that mixed up backwards stuff from times past. So 4 3rd level PC's would have a Average Party Level (APL) of (12 Levels)/4 PCs = APL 3. Add in a 3rd level Drow Noble instead of a regular race and your at EPL (14)/4= 3.5, which rounds up unlike most things to APL 4. Because of the Drow Noble PC, things can get more challenging. Encounters that would have been about Average for the 1st party would be Easy for the 2nd, and things that would be challenging for the 1st party are about what the 2nd party should be facing on average. (For more, check out the Gamemastering section of your core rulebook.)
That's why they start to fall off the table, because the racial benefit doesn't offer as much of an advantage at higher levels.