It probably has ore to do with the fact that arctic is such an open map. in Palms you can pretty well limit ground attacks 2 one or two fronts because you have that large mountain range covering your main base and mass points are mostly collected in only 2 other areas. You can build fabs there because they are pretty easy to defend. On arctic, however, you can reasonably expect an attack at any angle... so it's either let your fabs die to any attack or put them in the center of your base where they can cause incredible collateral damage... thus creating a lose-lose situation. Also, there's no hydro, so energy economies get off to a slow start anyways... making spare power for fabs rarer than on open palms with it's 3 hydros per side.