Quoted from CaptainNeo:i've said this like 100's of times, and I think people don't know what the hell i'm talking about. They would rather throw money at mods, since mods is all they know.
Normally I would say you are right, but even the newer LE's have the lower guides. What if we do not know everything and Stern plans the streams as a mod later on. Maybe they need the lower guides as they would travel over them.
I am all for the simplest solutions like you suggested but Stern could have easily fixed this without any cost to them and they did not. That makes me think not to get my hammer out just yet.