Why can engine variants stroke only be smaller?

I was wondering why is it that the bore and especially the stroke of new variant of an engine can only be made smaller. I thought we were allowed to at least mess around with the stroke. Shouldn't we be allowed to increase at least the stroke with a new variant to a minor extend? Otherwise this means you always need to build the most expensive/largest version before and downscale for the other variants. I understand we should not be allowed to go from a 2l engine up to 4l or so, but increasing the cylinder capacity by increasing the stroke up to 10-15% should be possible with new variants I think.