Rabbi Hillel Ben Shlomo raises the suggestion that Moses Montefiore went up to the Temple Mount to the more sanctified areas based on the above halacha in the Rambam in order to try to negotiate with the Arabs, the right to put an altar on the Mount and offer sacrifices. Because he thought that publicly revealing his intentions would ruin the negotiations, he gave other explanations why he went to those areas and did not tell his rabbinic critics what was his true intentions.
see the Hebrew article at
http://the--temple.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/blog-post_8.htmlI am just reporting what Rabbi Hillel Ben Shlomo wrote. I did not check out the history sufficiently to voice an opinion.