A Word from your Geneticist

[Winklabom]

Yeah, I'd argue that the main reason Port-a-Genes were used that way was because of the -extremely- toxic attitude towards geneticists (moreso than today): they would bring the Port-a-genes to the bar in order to give people powers, only to have them stolen and crushed by angry staff assistants every single time.

The geneticists pretty much said "Screw you guys" and then hid in maintenance tunnels and other z-levels from that point on until the Port-a-genes were finally removed.