Kalif,
You sound like the guy who said, "Drowning isn't so bad, it's just water."
The "reasoned debate on the need and more importantly the use of them" is simple. Without them, you can't see squat. With them, you can see in the dark, and that makes you safer. Sorry I wasn't so clear in the first post.
We have blundered anong without such devices for decades, now we don't have to.