Interesting. Of course if the suspension were to be lowered, the springs could be stiffened a bit to compensate for load and compression, but, obviously not enough to ruin the ride.
It's all a compromise, and at least with speed humps, they can, or should be, seen in good time so that the speed can be brought down to a crawl.
I think the fact that there are minimum heights required in many countries would certainly influence the factory, and maybe this wasn't known at development time, but only came out later forcing the increase in ride height and associated problems with bump steer?
