Feeling too comfortable following a legacy procedure instead of using the aircraft's actual capability perhaps Megan - you can ask why as much as you like but in the final analysis, as 212 man says, they flew into a rock that they shouldn't have at an altitude they had no necessity to be at at that point.
Standard Operating Procedures are 'handrails not handcuffs' as our SAR Standards use to say - you get paid the money to keep the aircraft and crew safe as your primary objective.