Thought this might be a good place to start, my first post on PPRuNE, from a young and unemployed pilot
1. Well, I suppose since the most widely accepted definition of severe turbulence includes "momentary loss of control" people might not want to admit that they weren't entirely in control of their aircraft in that situation? I feel that unfortunately the pilot universe is still macho dominated enough to call the one that reports 'severe turb' a wimp - no matter what the weather really might be like.
2. Hmm, nothing really on big birds, but I can remember a training flight on a DA40 where mountain waves created a large zone of moderate to severe turbulence - caused our plane to bank 80° and pitch up 40° within the blink of an eye, that was the final indication that its time to turn back...
But then again, I'm still relatively new to the business - looking foreward to other opinions!