I'm not a trainer but one aspect of other people's flying that does surprise me are the crap conditions that people will take off in, often without any form of IR rating, pinning their hopes on the forecast weather.
'Oh it's forecast to be great after 1100'. Can't think how many times I've heard something similar.
Each to their own though, if you're a qualified pilot then part of that qualification is the ability to manage risk, and we all do that to different criteria.
If you're not a commercial pilot then you don't have to take off. If you were a scuba diver would you happily plunge into an ocean with sharks nearby on the say so of someone who said 'Oh they'll all be gone by 11 mate.'?