Ponziani Playable?

Here is a game from the 2008 US Championship Women's section, WIM Epstein - WIM Tuvshintugs with full annotations and commentary:

In this game we saw white choose the Ponziani Opening starting with 3. c3 which led to a very interesting and sharp struggle which persisted throughout the whole game. The Ponziani Opening is played very rarely above the Master level. Does this mean it is a bad opening? Just out of fashion? Or too sharp and complex for Masters to formulate opinions on?