You have to understand that while we scratch our heads at the rationale of some checklists and SOPS, the reality is that you had a bunch of pilots and lawyers in a room cooking this stuff up at certification time....
'Ok, imagine the lowest time, pal/buddy/robot, Chief pilot culled inexperienced moron flying this plane...next to him is a pilot with even less time, less balls..a marshmellow, hoping the pilot has it right, because he's not going to say anything...so when do we have this guy retract the flaps?'
'Well if we have him do it right way...some guy, some where is going to rotate right at stall, then retract the flaps...can't have that...if we make him wait until 1500 feet, chances are some moron will accelerate to 300 kts and rip them off....so tell you what...let's make it 400 feet.....high enough where idiot #1 won't do it to quick.....not so high that idiot #2 will accelerate past Vfe. All those in favor say aye. Now just to cover our butts, let's make the climb out speed less then Vfe, so figure the times to climb for that...ok...so what am I missing? Come on guys...try to imagine a complete retard flying the plane.....what have we missed...yeah yeah...that's right...get the AP on fast...no early turns....good good keep them coming...'