Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bet they did but it was a too big can of worms. Did you forgot how everyone claimed what everyone would stalk everyone and hence this shit should be banned? Did you forgot that there were (and probably still are) people who tried to use AirTags to stalk? Now everyone loves AirTags and A. can add more functionality which were deemed too controversial to include at the start.
Why would sharing have made those claims any worse? And this way they annoy a huge number of people.
It doesn't matter what to do this you need physical access to and the way to unlock the phone, it is still a valid way[0] and adding that at the start would clash with "you would know when [a predator's] an unknown AirTag would follow you".
[0] if you can't imagine this happening to you then it doesn't means it couldn't happen.