I agree entirely, bookworm.
Let me make 2 points:
It is just about impossible to
always have an escape route. Well, one could depart, circle overhead, and then land, and that's about the only way. Or perhaps fly between two runways over totally clean open countryside.
In reality there are moments, on just about every flight, when an engine failure would be fatal. They may be only a few seconds, and are usually pretty obvious (you look down and all you see is houses) and the chance of an engine failure during those few seconds is so tiny it's never actually happened. But the more time one spends doing stuff like that (e.g. flying over water without a life raft) the more likely it is to happen.
The other one is personal minima. I think this comes from the countless CAA handouts on "good airmanship". What are my personal minima? I haven't got a clue. If a plate says 550ft MDA then I will fly it down to 550ft; land if visual. Why increase it to 1000ft or whatever, when it's obvious from the instrument indications (like the LOC rapidly heading for one end of the scale
) that it is going badly. Why can't pilots be trained to fly the approach as it is drawn, and give up on it if it isn't going correctly?