To the OP ... the short answer is that there hasn't been any general power creep in starting ability scores that I have seen or that (apparently) most of the other posters have seen. Your players are just looking to start with better stats and it seems this was the method another DM used.

The suggestion to use 4d6k3rr(1,2) will generate stats on the high side but the benefit is that you should likely get all players with at least "playable" stats. I know some folks like to "torture" themselves with low stats but I often find that leads to meme playstyles and sterotypical behavior associated with each stat (and sometimes characters that just shouldn't be adventuring).

Personally, I use point buy 95% of the time but rolled stats do provide some variety at the expense of sometimes having characters with very disparate abilities (though there are a lot of good suggestions here to mitigate that issue).