IT is really usefully to be able to specify thresholds for each step of a transaction.....
But often we need to have a threshold for the total time of the transaction from start of first step to the end of the last step.
Then we can allow one step to takes a little longer than normal, but the end to end time is acceptable (therefore - do not alert)
We can also allow the step thresholds to increase because we are monitoring the whole transaction.