If I’m part of the brain trust then so be it. That’s the best compliment anyone has ever given me!
Risk is defined as both the likelihood of something happening and the severity of the outcome should it happen.
An engine or airframe has no clue what it’s flying over, what meteorological conditions it’s in aside from perhaps icing or turbulence, or whether it is day or night. They have the same limits and rates of failure regardless. Likelihood of something happening is the same. But only one component of risk.
So what are the differences in outcome in Day VFR over the prairies vs night or IMC over the mountains or ocean in terms of engine or instrument failure? Hopefully Mr The Colonel realizes that even his superior knowledge and superior skills won’t save him if he has no reference below safe altitudes. Or help him egress a rapidly sinking airplane. Or help him survive exposure in freezing water or inhospitable terrain.
Even aerobatics in Day VFR. What does loss of rudder control continuity do in a 172 cruising along at 5000 feet vs a Pitts in a spin? The difference in severity of outcomes is huge. It ends with the 34.2 hour 172 pilot likely being hailed as a hero after a completing uneventful landing, and Art Scholl—one of the greatest pilots ever—is dead.
