It's probably as simple as: they didn't have time. You have to move slowly and carefully on Mars. One rushed mistake and it's over.
For example: if you know that lift-off works, then that's a huge datapoint.
I don't know the actual list, but it's not hard to guess why they couldn't do everything, including ejecting it from the main rover and getting the main rover out of the way, in the ~12-14 hours a day that they have to do stuff.