On the model of plane they were flying that isn't possible. There was a firmware upgrade which compares the input temperature to the temperature detected by a probe on the engine feed and if they're too different rejects the input temperature (which subsequently means the plane acts as though you didn't input a temperature at all, disabling auto-throttle) but their airline had not yet applied this optional firmware upgrade.

The larger answer to your question is Raymond Chen's standard explanation on the The Old New Thing. By default no features are implemented so by default that's why your preferred feature isn't implemented.

The accident investigation was more interested in the other thing, given that for whatever reason the plane's acceleration is inadequate, why don't we realise and abort before V1? Humans turn out to be bad at this, so not much use asking the pilots. Airbus have built planes that measure their own acceleration and warn if it seems too low. So maybe that's the future.