Increasing the rate of block generation would increase the number of chain forks, which makes the system less reliable and easier to attack. Focus is shifted from CPU power to network power. 10 minutes already causes a significant number of chain forks:
// Don't show generated coin until confirmed by at least one block after it
// so we don't get the user's hopes up until it looks like it's probably accepted.
//
// It is not an error when generated blocks are not accepted. By design,
// some percentage of blocks, like 10% or more, will end up not accepted.
// This is the normal mechanism by which the network copes with latency.
//
// We display regular transactions right away before any confirmation
// because they can always get into some block eventually. Generated coins
// are special because if their block is not accepted, they are not valid.