I can answer the 'why' part, and it has been the same since I was a fairly active and decent climber, another sport with a sizable percentage of participants who don't understand that their 'heroic' grandstanding comes from ego issues and deep seated feelings of inadequacy that they then try to address through 'heroic' sports efforts.

Hey, I can respect self-abuse in the name of competition, but deciding how much pain other people should endure just so you can feel better about yourself is pretty sketchy psychic territory.