I’m sympathetic to your argument - but power tools aren’t ‘slight’ danger.
The point i'm making is that in high school we had wood and metal shop. Welding. Electrical. NONE of those classes exist anymore. And with helicopter parenting kids aren't learning them either.
The statistics don’t bear out that training or experience eliminates risk of serious injury. It’s even trivially disprovable with anecdotes - tons of experienced woodworkers have had blade touches and/or kickback-induced blade touches. Here’s 3:
https://www.woodworkingfunhour.com/blog/2020/1/16/015-matts-...
https://twitter.com/JimmyDiResta/status/318214766818635776
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fifjjacjLBE
If anyone is learning advanced shop safety, a few years ago I made the advanced survey that I wished existed: http://sawsafely.org/ . http://sawsafely.org/#injury-research-&-statistics has table saw injury stats. In an era of flesh-detecting table saws, using a table saw without it (other than weird special-purpose saws) means underestimating either the probability or the consequences.
For myself, every time I pick up a saw, I imagine cutting my finger off and it makes me take care.
When I aim the air nailer, I make sure my hands are further away than the nail length. I've had nails deflect on unseen defects inside the wood and poke out the other side where I didn't expect.
Regarding flesh-detecting table saws (which I fully support), there's a third possibility - lack of funds. Those things are seriously expensive. When the choice is not between sawstop and traditional saws, but instead traditional table saw or none, the traditional table saw can still be a worthy investment. It's all situational.
I had woodworking in high school, but no metal shop, no welding, no electrical. And most of the woodworking class was spent hand-sanding with worn out sandpaper from a drawer full - because the school didn't have enough funding to buy new paper each semester.
That said, I am better prepared for doing welding or electrical than my older relatives at my age, because I have access to youtube. It might be less reliable than learning it in school would have been, but I don't remember much from high school shop class anyway.
Even though I was using a tool with a very high tolerance for error, it was thoroughly impressed upon me that each cut I make requires consideration of the danger I am exposing myself to.
I use a $150 table saw today, and for every cut I make I run through a mental checklist to determine whether what I am going to be doing is within my own personal acceptable margin of safety, because that thing will not care one bit if my finger is in the way.
I'm all for safe tools, but my fear is that it grants a false sense of security for the user (in particular new ones), particularly when translating those skills to a new tool (another table saw in this case).
There's that promotional video with the hotdog where the saw doesn't even open a gash in it. Just pops right down.
That's nice and all for marketing, but the reality is that even Sawstops can mess up fingers pretty good. Sure, there's a far better chance of you keeping it, but still.
It's a last line of defense. A person really ought to act as though it isn't even there.