References to flight safety ('cause that is what risk assessment is fundamentally all about) being a 'load of crap' really do make me shudder.
I think that you miss the point. Nobody has said that the basic concept of risk assessment is in any way flawed, merely the way that it has been hijacked. The point is that, as Whopity has pointed out, threat and error management has been around longer than any of us, under the title of AIRMANSHIP. What is a 'load of crap' is the attempt by a bunch of unemployable geeks, with degrees in underwater basket weaving, to surround a well proven technique to enhance flight safety in management yuckspeak and present it as something new.
Show me anyone who is employing formal risk assessment methods before every flight, especially in private flying, and I'll show you someone who should not be flying an aeroplane (or any aerial conveyance). Come to think of it, they're probably spending so much time filling out pointless forms that they don't have time to fly anyway!