I only contributed to the match for a looong time, because I simply didn't know any better. Not everyone is on /r/PF or knowledgable about retirement investments. My company had their yearly 401K meeting, they promoted the match percentage as if it was the ideal, I contributed enough to get all of it, and thought I was fine.

Looking back, they were trying to convince people to contribute anything. There are several people at my small mfg company that don't participate in our 401K at all. I asked one salesperson why not ($60K job?), and she said "nah, I lost a bunch of money in 2008, I'm not doing that again."

So, short answer, most people are probably just uninformed or misinformed.