OK, several issues getting mixed up
My comments on an "escape route" are intended to mean that without one you have virtually no chance, and in that sense an escape route
is close to black and white. Like flying over water in the winter without a raft - unless you get lucky, near a boat, or get the call in at FL180 on an airways flight and there is a S&R heli nearby.
A SE engine failure on a real proper night is russian roulette. It has to be, because you will see nothing until the last few seconds. But the odds with RR are pretty good - 1:20 probably
I have no problem flying at night, and have no fear or concern while doing do, but I have ~ 1100hrs TT of which about 30 were done at night, and it is obvious that my 1100hrs TT would have been done with a much higher risk profile had 550 of them been done in pitch black. So, in line with my policy on minimising risk, I avoid night flight. Practically, it causes me no problems because I normally fly to my own time schedule, generally departing at the earliest possible (airport opening) moment so as to give me the maximum time at the destination on the day of arrival, and returning late at night is not possible because my home airport will be shut.
The rest is attitude to risk. Lots of SE pilots make the SE v. ME decision, and I think it is rational to favour the SE option because the SE performance is similar (if not better), operating costs are much lower, and the downside (assuming comparable systems redundancy, which to be fair is hard though not impossible to find in a single) is the engine failure risk, which is very small.
I don't think there are that many airfield options in the UK or Europe - unless one is flying at pressurised airway levels with a slippery plane. There is a fair # of strips down there but one would never get out of many of them.
Anyway this is digressing