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Can't speak as a fighter, but as an observer, especially for westerners, training & fighting is a self-disciplining act. You are putting yourself through something, and when that manifests itself as something like low-body fat, and exposed muscularity, it makes sense that that is part of the meaningfulness of doing that. It also helps that big cutting is seen as a way of gaining advantage in matchups, so if you win that way, it makes sense for it to add to the meaningfulness of the training & cut. But, you are right, it does detract from just becoming the best fighter you can be, developing the skillsets to win in fights closer to your walk around weight, etc.

I'll give this a go at the next class. I hadn't thought of the touch portion as a primary focus (even though it was the primary problem), but framing it like that makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

I suspect that this isn't a conceptual thing, a failure of communication, but rather a feeling thing. It takes time to feel comfortable with contact. An idea might be to create more acclimation friendly experiences to start out with? You can explain to them why closer is better, but until they feel it it won't be real. You can for instance modify the drills to include light punches on the arms, instead of the head, where the point is to actually feel (and give) the contact. Just developing a touch, touch, touch experience might open the door to more comfort.