I would expect any reputable ops engineer to consider whatever obstacles at whatever distance may be necessary to cover the entire flight. One doesn't run to 1500ft, for instance, and then just leave the pilot with the problem (OK, I know some operators do, but that's not a nice thing to do).
Routinely one might well be looking in excess of 50nm for a critical twin just to get the basic takeoff done .. then it becomes a matter of making sure that the enroute path is OK.
MORA is a very restrictive sledgehammer way of getting around the problem ... but very useful to the Commander if his/her operator doesn't do the work at the ops engineer level ...