Sure - but aren't monks and priests also supposed to be a model, demonstrating what a really dedicated, pious follower of the religion should look like?
Wouldn't you expect a full-time professional footballer/dancer/poet to be better at football/dance/poetry than the average person on the street?
The notion that priests and monks should be holier than the common folk strikes me as very Abrahamic. This forms a hierarchy in the mind.
I'm not a Buddhist, but if I were, I would interrogate (and probably reject) such hierarchies.
Ethnic Buddhist traditions are usually among the most conservative forces in the society. They try to be conservative models. In Burma and Sri Lanka many of the politically most active monks favor ethnic cleansing and preach religious intolerance.