Why is component spread a figure of merit for analog filters design?
Think in terms of tolerance and error propagation. 

Your components have finite tolerances that can be 20% or worse when it comes to capacitors. Even worse than that if the capacitors are ceramic and have a DC bias on them. 

If you have a large component value spread the largest components will dominate the tolerance of the filter poles and zeros, to the point of making the smaller components irrelevant. 

Furthermore, a quick error/sensitivity analysis shows that the lowest sensitivity of the filter to component errors happens when the components are identical in value.