User blog comment:Suparockr/List of Plotholes throughout the series/@comment-2250460-20120719024024/@comment-24174486-20120719030338

It's not as much "plot hole" as potential idiot ball. It's simply the characters doing something more complex when a simple solution would do.

There is something I was thinking of and just checked to verify, although it is a bit on the Fan Wank side: Every time I did that mission, I'd notice that my shields/barrier would take some damage from the sun as I was going past the destroyed column. Checking a video of the sequence, it appears that the sun is shining just low enough that it would hit Shepard and their squad if they were to climb over the collapsed pillar. With the area filled with geth, taking the time to climb over the pillar and then exposing themselves to the sun while doing so could prove deadly.