You people
bitching about this are amazing, not to mention the original poster seems
to
be utterly confused not only about what they're doing but what they say
they
wanted to do. Hint: a crater is not a crater is not a crater.

Like I said I don't have a big beef about this but I do have beef about
people assuming things wrong about me (achiles heel) :-) So I got to keep
going. Huh!

There searching for past water evidence be examing rocks (pretty simple).
All rocks come from bedrock. It is better to get bedrock that is broken up
than bedrock that is one big sheet. The lander can only "shave" It can not
dig. They did imply they didn't want to go in the crater on Spirit. One
reason is perfectly clear by looking at Opportunity pictures is all the fine
material collects in the hole. Dirt blows in but doesn't blow out. They
want broken up rock MORE than they want fine grain material. Its better to
land on the outside of the crater were particles were thrown than in the
crater with possible chance of not getting out. Though it looks like this
crater should be no difficulty.