Building to protect occupants and building to make the structure salvageable afterwards may be two different goals. Think crumple zones in cars.
Nice point. Still, in wast majority of cases, house keeps standing -> habitant survival chance goes up.
Cars being on the move, makes that distinction much much more relevant
Where is the crumple zone in the burned out buildings in California?
This is not a good analogy.
Crumple zones in cars exist under the assumption that they will not be occupied by humans. In a house, on the other hand, any place could have a person inside of it during an earthquake, meaning that basically the entire house would need to stand to avoid any human being hurt.