Now if you happen to be really good at driving, it's even safer because you can recover from a slide faster, again because of the increased traction during acceleration. Once your tires have traction again the additional traction moves you out of the slide faster.
The only problem here is people going too fast which can happen with any car.
I'm struggling to come up with a reason why the faster acceleration itself would be a safety issue (maybe trying to get out of the way of a truck that can't stop or something? it seems niche), so let's instead look at the increased control during acceleration (from less force on the steering tires).
When does that matter from a safety perspective?
In a straight line, it doesn't. Let off the gas and try again. No matter what you do, you're going to go in your intended direction of travel or stay put.
So that brings us to accelerating around a curve. Don't do that on public roads in normal cars in winter conditions. The risk profile is terrible. If you misjudge it just once you're in a ditch.
Even your slide example seems strange. Could you describe the conditions of a slide where applying power helps you gain traction faster than not applying power? The only thing immediately coming to mind is reducing the yaw force in certain oversteer scenarios with a counter-steer and a bit of power, but in that case whether AWD helps or not is extremely situational and depends on the exact build of the car.
But aside from all that, I think there is a scenario where applying power can help gain traction faster. In a FWD, if someone has gone into a corner too fast, or encounters a more slippery surface than expected, and the vehicle starts to understeer straight-ahead, I have heard of the idea of accelerating to get the vehicle to continue around the corner. The turned front wheels, while still not gripping properly, spin and pull the front in the direction of the corner more than would happen from just braking or maintaining speed. I'm probably not explaining that well, and it doesn't sound safer than just braking! I am fairly certain I remember seeing something which I think is related, in the Owner's Manual for some old front-wheel drive Japanese sports car. Something like an old Honda Prelude or a Toyota Celica. They played up the safety of FWD "pulling you through" the corner. None of this makes the case for AWD though. I can only see the advantage I wrote above about accelerating earlier/harder, and I think you already addressed that.
In Michigan, like clockwork the AWD SUV’s would go flying off the elevated freeways into the deep snow at 50mph in every storm.
I love driving up to Tahoe in a blizzard. I'll happily be doing 25 mph going uphill as it's roughly the safe speed for the conditions. I'll constantly be passed by AWD SUVs going 40-50, while going uphill.
Then we summit Donnor Pass. I'm still cruising along at 20-25. You can see the fear in these SUV drivers' eyes as they start sliding down with their "all season" tires. Invariably, they'll then slow to 5mph with their flashers on in the right lane and I can cruise down t 25mph and pass all the cars that flashed at me or gave me a look going up.
It is baffling to me that CA loves to enforce chain control but exempts AWD without actual winter tires from it. It's almost never the 2wd drive cars with chains that pile up, it's always the AWD SUVs. If you're going to enfore chains, at least do it usefully and only exempt actual winter tires. Then it would be useful, not just a massive slow down.
In a very long winded way, couldn't agree with you more!
Personally, I'm comfortable driving anything but a RWD pick-up truck with no payload in snow and ice, try to drive at an appropriate speed for weather conditions, and rarely have trouble.