Yeh I assume they are experimenting now so that when the album is out they have an idea what songs to keep and which ones to drop for newies.
Playing AMOLAD straight through was a proud and bold move to show how much faith they had in the album and good on them, it is easily one of my 2 fav albums from them along with NOTB. I think if it was a typical Maiden album with a few filler songs as most have, then it would have been a dumb move, but AMOLAD is probably their most solid album of all with no weak songs IMO, so i just worked.
I kind of pity them in a way, if they try something new like playing an album through or dropping classics for great new songs, then they get criticised and if they kept the same tired setlist the same thing would happen. They cant win against people that prefer to criticise than enjoy.