The main issue is comfort. Riding rough roads on hard tires gets old after a while. Also, real MTB'ing, where the trails are designed to be challenging, is its own beast.
I also prefer avoiding car traffic if possible.
Funnily enough I do MTB, and I have a full suspension and a fully rigid frame both offering their own challenges.
In many places a road bike isn't actually street legal (no bell, no fenders, no lights, of course you could add those).
At least in the US, drivers don’t drive well around cyclists, and sometimes that’s intentional to boot. Better to not share the road with people who are actively trying to hurt you with a metal object weighing several thousand pounds.