englishal, your post has a number of misconceptions and misunderstandings.
First:-
If you want to use stats to prove this, how many collisions have occured in VMC conditions? Pretty much ALL of them
AFAIK.
This is quite an extraordinary statement to make. It rather sets the tone for the rest of the post.
Secondly, you say
some people who probably have never used the system
I am prepared to bet a considerable amount of money that I have used more TCAS systems than you. I have also written training modules for crews flying TCAS systems when they fiirst started becoming mandatory in larger aircraft. So let's not start slinging mud like that.
Third, nobody has said that we should "rely" on the Mark I eyeball solely. Situational awareness, ATC radar units and other systems (of which TCAS is just one) also have a major part to play.
Next, you state
Also because you can see the altitude of conflicting traffic you know if there really is a risk or not.
That's fine if you rely 100% on what TCAS and your own altimetry is telling you. If you want to bet your life on that rather than having a look out of the window, then that's fine. Just don't go betting other people's lives on it as well. All it takes is a mis-set altimeter and bang - that's all she wrote.
Next, your near miss:-
I had a controller clear an aircraft for a left hand departure from a right hand parallel runway just after I had taken off the left hand runway at night.
Situational awareness should have alerted you to a very real and significant danger of collision. I suggest that you should have taken action well before the other aircraft got that close.
You say your wiggly amp devices are good for increasing situational awareness. I'm all for that. But anyone relying on such systems to give him first notice of traffic instead of starting off looking out of the window is an accident waiting to happen, and is a very silly pilot indeed.
Finally, a miss is very far from being as good as a mile. A little light aircraft thinking that 20' is fine and having a close encounter with something fast and heavy-ish doing close to 250 kts and pumping lots of hot air out the back is liable to be very upset. A physical collision is not necessary.