Because it's what the "casual" playerbase initially asked for?
I remember a few dozen threads from players asking for Coil to be nerfed into the ground or to just offer a story mode because they didn't care about / want the gear but rather just wanted to see the story, however they felt the content was too difficult.
At the time the "hardcore" and "midcore" players just wanted to retain the baseline difficulty of coil because they felt it had a decent balance and enjoyed the fights as they were, however most players either didn't care or were open to a story mode being added to appease those who wanted to see the content as well. Instead we got echo nerfs which took the experience away from a large number of the midcore players who had yet to enter at the time, with the "casual" crowd telling them to "just do Savage" as if it were remotely the same thing.
Now with Alexander release they've gone a step further and released content with a gap that pretty much ignores the "midcore" playerbase entirely and discourages a large number of the "hardcore" from even bothering because they quickly get burned out.
Personally i don't care if story mode does or doesn't reward gear, but lets not play the "Would the hardcores want this!?" game when many of the players who are complaining in regards to Savage and normal were perfectly fine with the initial coil releases and we're only at this point because it was the other side raising complaints, the same side that is once again trying to say "well just do Savage then!!!"
