I'm a think a couple of comments here have confused me slightly:
With a dry V1 you should be able to suffer a critical engine failure, right up to V1, and still be able to abort the T/O and remain on the R/W.
Not strictly - V1 is a
decision speed, i.e. you need to have recognised the engine failure and decided to stop by V1 at the latest. I believe the regs expect a 1 sec (?) decision time. So if you had an engine failure
right at V1, it's too late to have think about it - you must continue the takeoff.
In other words, we
must have already made the decision to stop by the time V1 is reached in order to stop safely.
V1 is stop / go consideration speed.
I'd take issue with the use of the word 'consideration' speed in favour of something a little more black and white, as I was taught:
decision speed. When talking about a/c in Perf category A there are really few failures which require a great deal of 'consideration' with reference to V1.
If it's an engine failure before V1 - stop. If it's an engine failure at or after V1 (see above) - go. If it's anything other than an engine failure then the ability of the a/c to stop or continue the takeoff is unchanged and V1 is only relevant if it is obviously necessary to abort.
From speeds anywhere near V1 situations requiring aborts ought to be very obvious, such are the risks associated with high speed RTOs, so 'consideration' of the situation will probably be limited!