[raizer88]

Because the status page can be used against the company in case of litigation. So basically you have 2 way of doing it, an easy one where it's just an on/off, and an hard one where the legal team write it (after 2 weeks of internal discussion).

[riogordo2go]

"Some of our customers are experiencing elevated error rates" while in reality the entire service is down.

[HPsquared]

It's essentially a smoke signal.