Originally Posted by
Pace
One maybe worse but then the partial can become worse than the full
Take the Biggin crash? The pilot had a partial and could have used that partial to have controlled his descent to a field landing.
he must have considered that the partial power would take him back to an on airport landing a better situation on the face of it than landing in a field.
In that situation what appeared as a better option quickly deteriorated to a worse option with the result that the pilot crashed and was killed.
In both situations you have an engine problem and in the partial unless its fixable as BPF says pilot induced you will not really know the outcome.
With the full failure at least you can put your full focus to the forced landing as one way or another you are going to arrive back on terra firma,
With more options you have more choices with more choices you have the option to make the wrong choice 
BTW I did add the word ALMOST
To the statement of your above
Pace
Guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one. I think it is
always better to have some power (which is the more probable case) then no power at all. You may elect not to use the power available, For instance in the case of an low level EFATO where the best course of action is to cut the power and land straight ahead, but choice is always better then no choice IMO.
The challenge is how to make the right choices and that I think goes back to my point about how "engine failures" are taught in flight schools misses a priceless opportunity to practice making some of those choices.
How many new PPL's know the minimum power setting required to maintain level flight ? Any power above that and you don't have an engine failure you have an entirely different problem, one that again is virtually never explored in flight training.
The saddest accident I personally know about was a C 172 that crashed after an engine failure in very inhospitable terrain. The airplane was destroyed and everyone badly injured, one with permanent life altering injuries.
It turned out the left tank had no fuel but the right tank had 10 gals, with the fuel selector still in the left position. Simply turning the fuel selector to both would have restored engine power yet that never happened.
I think a major reason was that the his flying instructor told him to get the cause check done as quickly as possible so he could concentrate on flying the PFL manoever. Therefore while training for his PPL, given the PFL exercise he just mindlessly verbally rattled off the cause check items as quickly as possible. After all he
knew it wasn't going to make any difference as the engine was going to stay failed.
Therefore when the engine stopped for real, under stress he defaulted to what was presented as the "most important part" of the PFL, flying the manoever so the cause check
which would have prevented the crash was never actioned.....
I like to think this scenario could not happen to one of my students because I won't let the PFL manoever continue if a good effective cause check is not carried out. This involves looking and physically touching the appropriate controls while calling out the actions in a measured manner. To keep thing interesting, on some PFL's, after the student has actioned the cause checks I give them the engine back at some partial power setting and ask them "what now".
Obviously you still have to have and practice the skills to safely crash the aircraft after an engine failure, but I wonder over the years how many aircraft have wound up wrecked in a field when effective pilot actions could have restored power ?