That's how I see it too. Not security, but developer experience. You set the file as readonly, but provide a message to PostgreSQL superuser that this is as intended
This is discussed in LWN comments, in fact. But the problem there is that the protocol used to communicate the fact that the file is read-only to the application (errno==EACCESS or equivalent on other platforms) does not provide any useful way for the system administrator who makes the file read-only to add a notice explaining why permission is denied, in a way that it is also communicated to the app - so that it could display it to the user.
So the proper solution to this whole thing would be for the OS to provide such a facility: "permission X is denied to Y because Z". This seems like a useful facility in general, come to think of it. But it would have taken more time and effort, and would require buy-in from more parties, some of whom might be very hostile to this notion (e.g. I don't think it would be an easy thing on Linux). No wonder that this isn't an option that is even contemplated as realistic.
And so instead we got yet another easy-to-make crutch in the tower of crutches and duck tape that is modern software.
