I've always wondered why for a lot of console FPS's, they don't let you customize your controller layout.  They give you a few templates to choose from, but that's it.   It occurred to me recently while playing Black Ops, but also I noticed it back when I was playing Borderlands.  I'm sure there are other examples. 
 
Can anyone in the know tell me if there's a reason for this?  Is it some sort of a gameplay balancing issue or something, or just a design choice?  If it's the latter, why does it seem to be the standard?

The control setups work for 90% of people, I don't really recall any instance where I wanted to change a specific button in a control layout.

A lot of games nowadays don't seem to let you configure controls. Usually you're lucky to even get options besides the default. It can be really annoying for me too because different devs have different ideas of which button should do what and I tend to get mixed up when switching between similiar games. It also sucks for gamers with disabilities.
 
As for why, all I can think of is developer laziness/lack of time. They would have to redesign all the little prompts and such to account for people with remapped buttons and there would need to be some additional QA and bug fixing time.

Im on PC... so my controls are pretty much anything I can Imagine. Want to control Black Ops with a pocket calculator? You can!  
 
But I don't get why consoles don't at least let you remap buttons, it seems like a trivial thing. It can't be laziness because they would have the button prompts in the system all they would need to do is provide for the game to use that prompt in a different context. So hit A to switch weapons would just be hit A to throw grenade. There must be a reason. 

Because gaming is dead. Pack it in boys.

design choice probably.  they want their game to be played as they intended it to be. 

" design choice probably.  they want their game to be played as they intended it to be.  "

" @100_Hertz said:

" design choice probably.  they want their game to be played as they intended it to be.  "

Jump on Y would really screw up that design. "

it's a good question. they could at least make it so that people can remap the buttons. i think would be a great idea.

Because it won't increase sales.

" Because it won't increase sales. "

I'm just going to pretty much claim M/KB supremacy on this one.