I hesitate to stray into the minefield between Boeing and Airbus, but might it not be sensible for standardisation here? Every passenger aircraft door has the same job to do - open when it should, stay shut when it should, and unroll the rubber carpet when it's time to dispense with the niceties and make haste. There are no reasons why the sticky-out bits that make it happen should be different... are there?
Every car company on the planet has managed to agree on brake, accelerator and clutch layout.
Flight deck standardisation... well, that's another story.
R
(Oh, saw a video of the A380 top deck overwing escape slide deploying. It goes in two directions at once - most impressive)