For Bilbo, I think that it is because it made it more interesting because if he had been a young hobbit he would have been over-eager, perhaps, rather like Pippin, who just saw it as an adventure, fun even, who didn't really understand the danger. Bilbo, as an older hobbit, made for a more interesting character. He was settled and content with life, whereas a younger Bilbo wanted to go on adventures. An adventure shook Bilbo's life up much more because he was older. And much older than 50 and he would probably be too old to go on adventures. As for Frodo, I think part of it is the way the chronology worked out. Bilbo had to have had the Ring long enough to have it growing on him, and Sauron had to have enough time to go back to Mordor and take shape and gain power, etc. All the events leading up to the Quest had to happen first, and I think that Tolkien probably liked the idea that Frodo and Bilbo were the same age.
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He had indeed privately made up his mind to leave on his fiftieth birthday: Bilbo's one hundred and twenty-eighth. It seemed somehow the proper day on which to set out and follow him.
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I believe this could possibly used as an example of what JRRT was thinking. It probably seemed fitting to him to have Bilbo and Frodo being the same age. It also might give the reader who read the Hobbit first a sense of connection between the two.