Superb thread, thank you Sir John Farley for starting it.
To come back to your initial " hinch" paranormal theory. I never felt this in my carreer but in fact the opposite :In flying recalling the few mishaps I had , it was always when I felt totally realaxed and sure all was well that " Sh@t happenned ". Not sure if it is me , but it occurred to me far more times to be pure coincidence.
In ATC , every controller will tell you that incidents mostly always occur right after a peak busy session , when you calm down and start to relax. But that is another story.
On the wind passed by ATC by TWRs : Remember that the controller can only give you what he reads on his dispay or on a piece of paper given to him/her by met people. This s not necessarily the real wind outside .
Anecdote : In a large international airport in a large Country in Africa served by all European and some US airlines, the airport Anemometer was ( maybe still is ) broken, so the wind you get on the R/T by the TWR controllers is the one of the METAR issued by the met office downtown and updated every 30 minutes.. and 90% of the time the info is not far from the reality. It is when you get to land in the 10% that it becomes critical.
And this is not only an African Problem, re-visit the report on the crash of the Air France A340 in Toronto , part on the wind info passed to the crew during its APP...