They probably think that had-rails are more useful for dragging yourself up than slowing yourself down, and hand-rails would be easier to mount to an external wall than and internal support or empty void… I dunno, it is probably just stupidity, architecture always seemed to have a fondness for being more art than science…
I grew up on Rogue, so > means go down the stairs and < is not used unless you savescum…
Rogue-likes descended from Rogue, so they all use the same conventions in most instances. We could try using ^ and v or / and \ or U and D(Zork would approve…) or perhaps look through the extended character set for something that looks like a step beneath a platform and another one that looks like a step above a platform… But basically, there are hundreds of rogue-likes out there and they all do the same thing…
How about, instead of thinking “this is wrong, they go in the wrong direction” try thinking “this is fiction, they are being weird on purpose”. It is like having your king-Arthur Expy wear a magic bikini because it has better stats than the gothic plate, you just accept that magic is a thing in that world and move on. Sure, you might poke fun at it at first, but over time that gets old and you just ignore it, then it insidiously creeps into your mind and you start accepting it. And then you see a game with gothic plate having a better defensive value than the bikini and you start complaiing that all the good armour is too heavy and how it makes no sense to have a game like this because strength 0 heroes deserve good armour too…
