Your consideration is very logical. Sadly, from a development P.O.V., it is nowhere near that easy.
You end up needing to consider a range of variables that can be a combination of each other- you may recall in High School math class how combinations can increase exponentially the more variables you add.
As Linux is generally FreeWare; it sometimes means that the user must take up some of the responsibility to go in and change or fix a file, rather than a developer needing to do so for thousands if not more of them.
It's a small price to pay; even if it can be a little frustrating time to time.