This may come off as antagonistic but that is NOT my intention.

Some folks have made a pretty penny by making something that "seemingly" the masses would appreciate. Case in point? There is a company making good money building retro-fit parts to make the Ruger Mk I-III easier to field strip & re-assemble. (I never found it that hard but the MASSES have spoken and many do)

If you very genuinely believe, engineering-wise that it would have been -SO- easy for S&W to make it... then YOU should focus your efforts on doing it yourself.

If you followed that and put forth the effort, you would have:
--a .22 with an ambi safety
or
--a product that OTHERS will pay you cash to get!
or
--your inability to make it work could give you a more clear picture of why S&W didn't do it themselves