Why do we need a programming language to run software installers? Like, all I really need is the ability to say, "Hey, for this thing, install it in a versione

Why do we need a programming language to run software installers? Like, all I really need is the ability to say, "Hey, for this thing, install it in a versioned directory, please, and leave /usr/bin the heck alone." or even "Okay you're stubborn and you won't give up on /usr/bin but at least do the first part for me." For most things (ls, find, etc) this is unnecessary but yeah for the pythons & javas and so forth, it's helpful. Seems like a lot of package managers already do the latter but sysadmins insist on There Shall Be Only One even when /usr/bin is already symbolic links into versioned installs (or links to links to links to versioned installs..). Maybe I'm missing the point entirely.