I understood it to be Air Traffic Control not Air Traffic Conditional? ATC are within their rights to tell pilots to go around if they have the equipment to alert them. And to stop take-offs if the situation so requires. So why pick and choose when you can and cannot intervene?
Ultimately pilots pay the price with their lives and ATC with their paperwork. This boils down to a pretty basic pilot error that could have been prevented by A) better pilots B) more assertive ATC.