I know I mostly ghost these forums and glean information I need to solve problems, sometimes my own but decided I'm going to comment here.
In the 20 some years that I've worked on computers, most of which was removal of virus and malware, the number one reason can be summed up in the response I typically get from clients I ask why something was installed which was 'I thought it was wrong when it said it was a virus so I pressed ignore'. The average user in my experience of over 20 years has been that of someone that needs their hand held when it comes to the security of their computer. It isn't that they are dumb, ignorant, or a slew of other twists to what I am saying it is often simply in too much of a hurry to really read what the warning is saying on the screen or simply lacking experience with what or where things can be trusted. Now, if you have a client that you 'teach' how to slow down, read, and understand what is safe and what is not... that is different and then also teach them where and how with Avast! you can safely ignore the warning. In my opinion from my experience, Avast! has the right thinking that the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few who have the knowledge to know the difference between the false positive and the real deal.
For those of us who have the knowledge and experience to correctly tell Avast! 'Ignore this' and 'ignore that', the aggravation that we get from jumping through the exclusion loops is far less than the hundred of thousand common users who would simply press 'ignore' then spout off how Avast! failed them and let viruses/malware into their computer that they said it's ok and just ignore to. Not to mention the sudden increase in costs of repair to remove said viruses and malware. Avast! is thinking on a saving resources globally level not just the ease of use level and what is best for the average user.
I will say, it would be nice (nothing that I would demand on the Avast! Team but ask politely, being I'm only a customer as well and I DO understand their point of view and agree with it) to have a hidden option or a buried one that is hard to find (even if its a registry key to change) that would allow for an 'ignore' button on the suspected threat warning before it goes to quarantine that automatically submits it to Avast! for review as well as a second hidden option to 'submit' the false positive with ignoring or not to for those of us who are flooded by too many false positives due to unique or antiquated software being run that appears iffy to Avast!.
Additionally, for those slinging mud and making the stand that they are far superior of an intellect and know far more than an entire forum of geeks and Avast! Team Members (of which I'm in the Geek crowd) I do hope that one day you can see that no one is superior to another, that each of us have a strength of one area or another that the other person doesn't. In basic, we are all on the same ground footing and simply see a problem from different points of expertise, experience, and views. Putting ALL 3 of these areas together from everyone and you then see the broader picture that Avast! is viewing by a cliental base of over 200 million and hearing all three of these areas from many of them.
Lastly, over the many years I have been with Avast! I've seen them go from having an easily accessed IGNORE option to what it is today. I've seen their 'GEEK' UI that it use to be which was hard sometimes even for a geek to understand go to the now streamlined one that the most novice of users today can figure out very easily. Again, in my opinion, they have over the years made the Avast! program into something designed for the many average users at the price of some frustrations for the few of us users who are ubber geeks. The current design with the hard to reach ignore/exception has reduced my numbers of 'repairs' considerably because most of my cliental now are those using other antivirus software before I switch them to Avast!. The remainder is hardware / non-malware problems.
-David