Hey all. Brand new looking at possibly buying ST. Apologies if this is wrong place to post. My understanding from browsing the community Q/A is you need some kind of third party developed app to do anything other than lock/unlock door locks i.e. code management? Just curious why ST doesn’t have this capability built in unless I’m totally ignorant here. Looking at Wink and seems it can manage codes on Schlage (I believe that was the brand) out of the box. Thanks and again sorry if I’m missing something 
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You can use community developed code to manage your locks. ST allows for you or community members to upload code into your SmartThings cloud (IDE) account. With that code you can enhance or add Device Type Handlers (DTH) and/or SmartApps.
Here are two available options to manage lock codes. You will need to update your locks DTH and install the associated SmartApp.
You can log into your IDE account from the link below:
http://consigliere-regional.api.smartthings.com
Now after saying that and missing the exact reason of your post, I believe SmartThings may be working on additional built in functionality.
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The answer to your question is that none of us regular customers know why SmartThings quite often only provides support for a limited feature set of any given device. The company has done that from the beginning, and hasn’t shown any signs of changing, so it just looks like their corporate momentum rewards a broader set of options rather than a deeper one, if that makes sense. This is true in all kinds of device categories.
There is one organizational theory that says this is the difference between companies who have engineers as their top managers and those who have marketers as their top managers, but of course that’s just a theory. 
Anyway, one big advantage of the SmartThings platform is that they do allow customers to upload their own device handlers, and the hub is certified for two third-party protocols, Z wave and Zigbee Home Automation. You put all of that together, and it is frequently possible for the community to create custom device handlers which can access all of the certified features of a zigbee home automation (ZHA) or Z wave device.
You don’t have to use custom code to use SmartThings, but if you do, you will have many more devices and features available.
Many community members enjoy creating custom code and are happy to share it freely with others. Other developers choose to charge a license fee for their work. Again, it’s up to you what if anything you choose to use.
The process for using custom code is pretty straightforward: basically you copy the author’s code and paste it into your own account. And there are always lots of community members who will be glad to help you with any specific project.
You can see a list of community created code organized by function in the Community – created wiki. You’ll also see Lists of project reports if you want to see how other community members have solved specific problems.
So the reason you didn’t get much of a response when you first posted is that, to be honest, I don’t think anyone in this community knows the answer to why Samsung has chosen to only implement the most basic functionality for many devices in their official integrations. Maybe they just wanted to go for the lowest common denominator and create a generic base that then individual customers could extend if they wanted to. Maybe it was just a matter of “bang for the buck” when they were trying to grow really quickly. Maybe they hoped the device manufacturers would step up and create their own full-featured device handlers. Again, The question has been asked many times, but there’s never been an official answer.
The good news is that if you are willing to use custom code, you will probably find that some other community member has created a full-featured device handler for most certified devices. And if not, you can probably find someone who would enjoy the challenge of doing that. Whether that meet your needs or not is something only you can say. 
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Thanks so much for taking the time to craft such a thorough and helpful answer! Couldn’t have asked for a better explanation. I think that organizational theory is spot on
Good to know the community resources seem plentiful and helpful which is a huge plus Much appreciate the stellar reply!
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Thanks for the information!
I’m brand new here, and I came wanting to ask the same exact question. So thank you for the detailed answer! And thanks to the folks who are smarter than I, and know how to make these apps!
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