Victor Two:
You clearly are one of those pprune contributors who have no problem with displaying their complete ignorance, whilst honestly believing that they are making sense.
Your facile premise that just not crashing is better than being prepared for an accident displays the mental logic of an ant, no disrespect to ants. Go ahead and drive without your seat-belt. I also expect that your car is not equipped with airbags, abs, esp, collapsible steering column, anti intrusion bars or safety glass. These are clearly unnecessary items that would cramp your cavalier attitude to hazard analysis. You most likely also have crabs, the clap and possibly HIV with that attitude.
Long sleeves and pants, natural fibres, woolen socks with the elasticized part turned down over the outside, good quality leather boots (or shoes) can all provide at least a minimal level of flash flame protection, and are no real issue to wear, and yes, I have operated in the tropics. I have also spent up to 10 hours a day in hot cockpits under a bubble sliding canopy, behind a very big hot engine, while wearing a heavy duty flight suit (dark green to minimise the reflections), helmet and gloves. Amazingly one of the other pilots used to work in dick-togs, leather sandals david clarks. (eh, JH). The fact that neither of us crashed at that period of time proves nothing but luck. At least i had some insurance against the odds.
I wear a pair of correctly fitting nomex gloves as a matter of course and have no issues with them under normal circumstances. I have worn such gloves for 38 years now and cannot consider flying without them.
There are numerous GA operations where the hazard level is higher than others and a flight suit and helmet are a cheap investment. Again I have been used to wearing them whenever i considered there was an elevated risk. I have kicked, punched and clawed my way out of an inverted burning wreck and would not have survived without the safety gear I was wearing, especially my helmet which kept me conscious in the period immediately after (final) impact despite a severe head impact. this allowed me to get out before the cockpit was completely consumed by fire. that is what they are for. In the three serious accidents that i have been involved in, in every case my life was either saved (2 of them) or my injuries significantly reduced,( the other one.)
Not every pilot needs all the fruit, but elementary precautions such as long sleeves and pants (and gloves) not can dramatically reduce post impact fire trauma, but also reduces sunburn and skin cancer.
A couple of other hints: in the event of a forced landing off airport:
take your feet off the rudder pedals just before touch down/impact, especially in aircraft with fixed nose wheel steering. Those unbroken ankles are much easier to run on.
If you smell fuel in the cabin after impact take one deep breath and hold it til you are outside (or cover your mouth with rag cloth, or even your sleeve, or gloved hand). If it all goes up while you are inhaling a lungful of fuel rich air you will do for your lungs, even if your survive the fire flash and get out of the plane, you will die a few days later.
Other people have demonstrated all of this over the years, this is 'tombstone education'. learn from their lessons.
HD