Can we change the way that ESMValTool locates the data (rootpath)?

I don't understand why user's need to edit their config-user.yml file on jasmin by adding a rootpath here?

Ie:

rootpath:
  # Rootpath to CMIP5 data
  CMIP5: /badc/cmip5/data/cmip5/output1

This path is never going to change. It will always be the same for all JASMIN users. Why do we need to specify it in our config-user.yml files? Can't it be added to the config-developer.yml by default?