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I think people focus on vote switchers (as opposed to voters who just didn't vote for 'their' party) because they do double damage - once by losing their party a vote, and another time by gaining their rival party a vote. But the reasons for both (staying home and switching parties) seem broadly consistent:
I do think Brexit generally is a no-win situation for labour, and I agree that Corbyn was faced with some of the worst circumstances possible. But many of those circumstances were avoidable, and I think other leaders would've navigated those challenges better. By the time 2019 came around, I agree, the cards were impossible and no other leader could've done any better. But there were plenty of opportunities to shuffle the deck before then - Corbyn just didn't seem interested.
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ReekBlefs
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David Runciman has done a couple of interesting podcasts or talks about how the main issue in the seats that flipped from red to blue wasn't people switching from Labour to Conservative but Labour voters not voting at all.
Corbyn agreeing to an election would have gone down extremely badly too. Remember the rhetoric around Parliament being a "dead Parliament" and the increasing anger towards politicians? If that had been allowed to continue, and Corbyn had been held responsible for that, it would have got even nastier.
Corbyn was a very poor leader, but he was also in a difficult bind that no Labour leader could have come out of with ease. Would Owen Smith have done a better job at the 2019 election, for example?