At my company we are tought to maintain runway track all the time during an engine out scenario, the reason being the definition of the EOSID in our company - and we have one for every single runway in our network:
An EOSID starts at the runway end, and considers all obstacles in an area of 3.000' (~0.5 NM) left and right of the extended runway centerline (actually it is just 300' left/right of centerline at the runway end, extending to 3.000' at ~4 NM from the runway end).
If you now had a rather strong crosswind or your tracking is not very precise, i.e. While flying runway heading in a crosswind condition you would leave that 'safe sector' rather soon (e.g. with a tracking error of 10 degrees you would leave the safe sector before reaching 3 NM past the runway end).
That is why we are always tought to maintain runway track.
Regards,
DBate