Originally Posted by
Fortissimo
The lengthened gear would have required additional certification effort and would probably have lifted the evacuation height from the over-wing exits above 6ft/1.8m, which would have driven a requirement to fit an escape slide.
Notable we all seem to have heard different things.
Mine was that the existing gear was the maximum that could be folded between the lower fuselage main frame/spar members; any larger gear than the NG and it would have been necessary to do a redesign of the basic structure, seen as not an option.
It was possibly all of the above, in combination.