YOP, you are funny...
A good friend of mine was in a helicopter crash with one fatality, and he wore a helmet (Gallet 250), with his visor down.
The front window smashed to pieces, with debris flying everywhere, the helicopter rolled after impact.
After the accident he told me to always have the visor down (clear or shaded), that the helmet and visor really saved him that day.
I know there has been a few accidents in the old days with heavy helmets, where the crew broke their necks after survivable crashes due to heavy helmets. But with a modern helmet I can only see benefits.
Of course, one have to wear whatever one finds more comfortable.
I wear corrective lenses, so I find it more convenient with the integrated shades in the helmet, plus better hearing-protection (the glasses push the earcups on headsets out, letting noise in), and headprotection.
One don't have to crash to need a helmet eighter, there are birdstrikes and heavy turbulence also.
YOP, you sound like a guy that think it's rubbish to wear seatbelts in a car too. In Norway, 43% of the fatalities following a car-accident didn't wear seatbelts. That kind of says it all.
Besides, you need to wear a helmet if you are flying with NVG.
Nomex... We used nomex suits in my previous job, except when it was really hot (maybe a month during the summer, we are talking about Norway after all..
). At least it was a uniform that made us look proffesional, but it's also a safety item I wouldn't be without since we hot-refuelled several times a day.
Back to the helmet-discussion, it's pretty much personal preferences and what fits your head and needs.
I flew with a Alpha helmet for 9 years and love that helmet, and the ability to close the cups around your ears after putting the helmet on. And it's fairly light.
Now I use a Gallet 250 with integrated Bose A20 ANR headsets, and I like that one too. It took a bit more fine-tuning and modification to make it fit well.
In the S-92 it's pretty noisy, so it actually took out the ANR, before I stuffed the helmet full of noise-isolation plates (the ones you use in a car). After that, and after adjusting it to fit a bit tighter than perfect, it gives me far better noise-protection than the Alpha. I swapped back to the Alpha to compare on a few flights.
And in addition I use earplugs with 25 decibel filter, shaped after my ear.
But I can agree that in certain situations we are "securing ourselves to death", but I think that's more regulation-vice, that make certain tasks unneccesary complicated, instead of having SOP's that cover common tasks.