At last well reasoned comment on this issue but dont think that just because what you say makes a lot of sence airfield safety officers will take a blind bit of notice.
Unfortunatly we are dealing with the "safety industry" and this is full of people who are doing the safety officers job because the rest of us cant trust them with a real job !.
The only way that these people can be sure to stay in a job is to invent "safety rules" and make sure that they are the only ones that can inforce them.
Before the HSE forced itself on the aviation industry we were already very safe in the working practices that were in force all we have now is tons more paperwork and to work harder to pay the wages of the non-productive safety oficers.