Have they told you protocol compatibility is the reason?
I ask because when you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME. Which is a fun way of saying, while you have found an issue which should be resolved, you might complete the work and discover they had a different issue.
Secondly its important to remember while software engineers like to think they are super rational. They are people and people can have myopic views and giant egos.
Both of which can allow people to rationalize all sorts of weird and counter productive behaviour.