I've never had a school emergency in 44 years of flying. My experience is that issues are very ill defined in the real world outside the classroom and successful resolution is very much situation dependent. Had this malfunction occurred in hard IMC (yes, I know the aircraft wasn't IFR rated) would the same decisions have had as happy an outcome? Well, no- but the whole issue would have looked entirely different if the perception was that mere survival depended on the electrical system. As the poster pointed, perhaps unconsciously, the decision train could have ultimately put survival at risk.
I'd suggest from my reading of the original post that an ammeter neutral position (zero load) doesn't indicate the system is functioning. Argument?
Next, I have a habit of periodically loading (cycle a landing light, for example) the electricals in a more or less static situation to see ammeter needle movement. I have had generators pack it in without a warning light, once resulting in a Halloween night in a freezing pasture. I've never run out of electrons doing the intermittent load thing.
More on the hard VFR thing, as narrated: Just because you can see forever, doesn't mean you're not reliant on instruments. I'm disappointed to hear that this aircraft didn't have some sort of redundant power supply for NR, people kill themselves thinking they know more than the dials. NR is very, very important. Perhaps the incident aircraft is like the AStar, when you run out of battery you run out of reliable rotor tach? That's a hard no-go for me, an auto is much more comfortable with NR indications, I don't want to bet my life that I can do that. Mechanical gauges have a place my "high school, flight school, Vietnam" heart for that very reason.
Self induced stress will kill you dead, dead, dead. Trying to get to easy maintenance is a proven killer. Failing to plan for survival options is also frequently fatal. Perhaps keeping convenient culture assistance (following major roads, for instance) would have been impractical. Again, my experience is -generally- otherwise, planning the diversion necessary early and intelligently adds very few minutes to a leg. Beyond keeping me alive, it's just a lot easier to resolve the problems I've encountered when I could get help in civilization, perhaps I'm lazy.
Basing a plan on the "other pilot" will also have an unfortunate outcome if continued. You can do what you can do, not what you think the other pilot is capable of. You're not the "other pilot" and you can't compete with a fictional construct, your imagination can push that perception further than you will be able to go. Serious fault, I think, perhaps the most serious in the narrative.