Mojang support wrote:

Ideally, all unexpected behavior should be handled gracefully, and the user should be given comprehensible instructions on how to solve the problem. Unfortunately, Mojang has not made that a very high priority, often choosing to crash the software to prevent damage to user data, rather than handle the problem gracefully.

This is a reflection of their development process, and the style of the game. While Minecraft is appealing to a wide range of people, it's definitely very raw, designed with a "hardcore" market in mind, with very little hand-holding. You're dropped into a world, and given no instructions. Not even a list of controls. The expectation is that if you're playing that sort of game, you're capable of figuring things out for yourself.