SB, a major reason for the attitude of "you only need it for risky flying" is that a lot of GA pilots are by their very nature rather risk tolerant and pretty sure they are personally better than the average pilot. There is also a healthy degree of fatalism tossed in for good measure (i.e., "If I can't avoid the crash with my superior flying skills, I'm as good as dead any way you shake it") so it's an uphill battle trying to advocate for any sort of changes. Recently, we've also run into the political problem of pilots with "conservative" leanings who view any suggestion of voluntary improvements in the experimental community as a violation of their "Don't Tread on Me" views on their perceived right to kill themselves and their passengers by tolerating the same long standing issues in popular designs and as an excuse to get up on their political soapbox.
I have a now elderly friend who was part of the initial push for shoulder harnesses in aircraft and recalls how people used to argue that it would prevent you from reaching the controls in an emergency. Some of the rebuttals people try to use are rather laughable both in that case and in the debates going on today.
My personal take is that I am going to wear a helmet and offer one to whomever flies with me. If you choose to do so and take your chances, so be it.
All of those things are nice but the biggest problem in many cockpit designs (along with insufficient strength of seat anchorages and restraint attachment points) is the lack of longitudinal stiffness which predisposes to collapse of the cockpit. The best airbag or collapsible steering wheel in the world isn't going to do much if you wind up with a Lycoming in your lap because the firewall fails backward in an otherwise low speed survivable crash.Our cars have air bags, collapsible steering columns, safety glass, and other features to protect our heads. By comparison, cockpits are pretty dangerous.
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