First, I think there was a strong stare decisis ["to stand upon prior decisions"] effect. During most of the time the ban was in place, it was not a high priority issue, for the simple reason that the Church was in no way unusual vis-a-vis the larger society. So it was sort of a back burner issue. The issue began to come to the fore in the wake of the civil rights movement, and for the last quarter-century of the existence of the ban it started to become a front burner issue. But church leaders at this time were at something of a disadvantage, because the policy had been in place for so very long, and none of their predecessors had seen fit to change it, that the default assumption was that there must have been a sound revelatory reason for the policy in the first place. Church leaders do not overturn more than a century of precedent lightly. And we have to remember that at that time they did not have the sound historical research on this subject that we do today (such as the early work of Bush, Mauss and Bringhurst). They were operating from a position of a lack of historical knowledge about the origins of the ban.

Second, I don’t think God micromanages our leaders. They remain mortal, fallible men, steeped in the cultures in which they live.

Third, the 1890 Manifesto and its aftermath was a very traumatic development for the Church, the effects of which we are still experiencing today, and the leaders of the time were not anxious to reverse course like that a second time.

I realize this is not a complete answer to your question, but it suggests some factors to consider in thinking about it.

Thank you for your time. Roger