And your point??

It's the bike business.

BITD we used to set up our bikes so we were using the levers at the middle of their range, which was about double what was needed. So Shimano was only imposing what we were doing anyway.

It might have been done because when we changed from noodle guides above the BB to open ones, overtravel in the lever could cause enough cable slack for it to slip out of the guide.