At the risk of taking this off-topic already
There are more potentially dangerous aspects of PPL than losing the engine, such as turns with flaps at low speed and altitude.
Is this still true? It used to be, certainly, which is why Langewiesche spends so much time talking about it, but is it still the case? Thinking back over AAIB reports I cannot think of any, while there have been several serious or fatal accidents following engine failure (including one poor soul who did everything right only to be failed by the cr*p PA-28 3-point harness).
The base-turn stall is part of the PPL skills test precisely because it is potentially dangerous, but you have to abuse a spamcan horrendously to actually get it to stall in the base-turn configuration (I could only get my PA-28 to slowly mush downwards on this bit of my skills test - the bl**dy thing wouldn't do anything else, even with the yoke full back). I'd have thought the engine failure is dangerous precisely because it is the one time that you are likely to stall at low altitude, while trying to stretch the glide. In a normal landing, and assuming that there were no other problems with the aeroplane, I'd reckon that the chances of me stalling while turning final are close to zero.
Vintage aeroplanes are a bit different, I know - I remember QDM saying that the stall/spin accident was the most common Cub fatality - but I'd have thought that the (generally) higher pilot experience/skill of taildragger pilots and the relative scarcity of the aeroplanes would make the base turn accident relatively rare. Maybe not? I would naively think that inadvertent-IMC and engine failure are the two most dangerous things that a PPL is likely to encounter, apart from doing something daft. You may well be right though.