Why oh why do they allow only one hour between connecting flights?

It turned out there were 5 of us catching the connecting flight to Sydney. Ground crew met us as we came off the plane from Malta (calling out, "Sydney. Anyone for the Sydney flight?") and escorted us to our connecting flight. This escort was at a run from one terminal to another (and Dubai is a huge airport) with the ground crew constantly telling us and anyone who got in the way that we only had 40 minutes to make our flight. By the time we got to the right gate, I felt as though I had run a marathon.