I think one needs not to take comments out of context.
Mach E Avelli (who has more runs on the career board than a very great many of the rest of us, and is a nice bloke to boot) observed
(like when the aircraft proved to be unflyable or suffered an uncontained fire). This in no way is endorsing aborts above V1 as a matter of course. This does sort of suggest that there was no thought on his part that such non-standard decision processes should, in any way, be cavalier. That is to say, such decisions must represent an
in extremis situation where the commander is convinced (rightly or wrongly) that he/she has no alternative at the time.
I think we all (should) accept that there is a world of difference between the second or two available to the commander on the day and the week or 20 available to the Monday morning quarterbackers to ponder the situation. We accept that the commander wears the consequences of his/her decision. Sully, Haynes,
et al get adulating pats on the back, others get whipped mercilessly - just the nature of the Industry and sitting in the LHS. Often, manifestly "good show" efforts attract brickbats, eg
Another very pertinent example is the DC8/B727 mishap at Sydney, many years ago (
Investigation: 197101202 - DC8-63 Aircraft CF-CPQ and Boeing 727 Aircraft VH-TJA at Sydney (Kingsford- Smith) Airport NSW, 29 January 1971 (atsb.gov.au)). Those of us with a performance background would have been aware of the stopping capability of the Boeing - most non-engineering pilots, on the other hand, would opt for the continued takeoff. For the TAA crew, it was manifestly unfortunate in the subsequent litigation that intra-cockpit comms went out over the VHF. Even with an extensive performance engineering background, I can recall (still very clearly) one of my early F27 flights (probably Devonport/Wynyard around 45 years ago) at critical weight. As V1 approached, the runway head was disappearing under the cutoff angle. I pondered the reject case for a second or two at the time ....
Fortunately, for the great majority of us, we are never put to the nitty gritty of character building testing on the line ... fortunately.