Ahh I see - I suppose it wouldnt be a good financial idea to fit aircraft with guages that may save lives, then again it would be pretty expensive.. ahhh economics!
I suppose another way of looking at it is that a reliable gauge will eventually (if you fly enough or are unlucky enough) put you down in a field. Complacency could possibly catch up with even the most disciplined. At least with crap gauges you know not to trust them, but yet they are probably good enough to tell you if you had in flight fuel leak.
Hmm, I made a comment about using a wooden stick that I seem to deleted when editing the post earlier. Sorry for any confusion.