Potentially more LANDING options, yes. What's wrong with that? More altitude will always mean more options. Regardless of whether the landing options all suck, at least you've got more time with altitude to see what your options might be. You can always spiral down if you feel you're too high.
None of this NECESSARILY buys you any advantage and in fact can lead to disadvantage as it adds in doubt and confusion. Many people end up changing their mind and biting it because they waited too late to do it questioning their first choice which they likely would have made.
There are hazards from every angle when we make decisions per fixed determinations on the basis of a single criteria and we ignore the other issues. Yes, in a odds on situation that one factor may be what sets the board, but even when you bet on the favorite, you still stand a chance to lose. If you think in absolutes and act only one way, you're still blindly gambling, and I was taught that's a suckers way to bet. If there is an immediate shower just before the bell, that long shot mudder may be the better bet when you get to the window.
Then there is the factor of Risk/Reward. What is the mean time between non fuel tanks empty catastrophic engine failures in GA aircraft? It's at least several thousand hours... it's good enough that it's insurable for not too steep of a price; it's enough of a concern that I own a high performance twin. One great lesson a life of operating machines has taught me, horsepower is your friend. Since I enjoy flying low, I prefer to buy my options through a redundant source of adequate horsepower to perform the operation intended. I then operate it at economy speeds which equates to high power cruise for a HP/SEL plane at not a great premium in day to day, and a long term savings of high five figures. One thing many SE owners don't consider is that I have the option of caging an engine prior to destruction and landing at an airport for low cost repairs. I did that 3 times during my ownership of my Travel Air. Low cost fix, just change a defective fitting on an oil line. Small money I'm good. Had I been in a single engine plane the engine would have pumped all the oil overboard, preferably not on the windscreen, and had I been at a cruise altitude preferred by SE pilots, I would have destroyed the engine. That's what, $30k per? Call it once because I would have ended up changing all the hoses when I hung the new engine the first time. As it was I had the engines feathered with always more than 3 qts remaining
I have though flown many hours <100' in a single engine land plane. I have even had failures at those altitudes and made a safe landing, even from 3'. Outside of big rocks, there are very few places you can't stick a small plane and survive if you remain in control and fly the plane solid until the last second and go in at minimum controllable air speed at the minimum rate of deceleration that you can find in front of you. Even big trees are quite survivable, I used to go out for Al Martin and pick up wrecks for insurance companies, you won't believe what people walk away from.
The common thread to all these people, which I believe because it is common to me as well, is they are acceleration reactors to stress. They all experience the same time dilation/ utter calm and peaceful, just doing what you're analyzing needs to be done and doing it while everything seems to be going along so slowly.
In one crash I had I had a great indicator of time since I could see exactly where my wheels went into the crop. It took 1.3 seconds from the time wheels entered the crop (was flying at 3' spraying and went through a frontal boundary wind shear) and the point where it was on it's back stopped, maybe add a couple tenths for hang time while going over the nose, call it 1.5 seconds. In that 1.5 seconds I went through what would in normal activity seem to be about 15 seconds worth of thought processes. I remember feeling my azz drop out from under me and thought "damn, last pass too."(I wasn't intending to fly that day but it was one of those "You have to, it's a major contract, it's scheduled for today, and they want it down before the rain." Since that is a major factor in the efficacy of the fertilizer, to get rained in ASAP, I looked at the DTN radar and said "I gotta go now then."). I went full forward with the quadrant and analyzed it wasn't working so I chopped it all back to minimize torque and rotational energy/flying crap going in. I though "wings level, tail down and keep her in a straight line actively thinking about the flying. No fear none of that, very peaceful, just 'doing it, we're crashing here, so lets get done. Then there was the view as the elevator lost authority and I kind of vaulted over a prop blade and ended up hanging upside in an open cockpit Ag Cat. Funny thing, I've been racing and crashing since I was a kid, didn't matter what it was, motorcycles, cars, drag boats... It's always been the same for me when I'm doing something and a 'if I don't pull something out of my azz right now, there will be no azz left to pull anything out of' occasion happens. Lots of people report the exact same type of experience. In car racing I've also talked to people who have the opposite reaction in a crash, they lock up and it all just goes by as a blur, they don't notice much of all, "and then all of a sudden it just happened so fast I'm not quite sure exactly how..". Not that I have a full compendium of surviving crash pilot's notes, but I have not yet met a person who survived a plane crash describe it that way. So I'm not particularly afraid of crashing. Personally I would test, or look back upon your life's events and determine which type of reaction you experience in these events. I'd even hypothesize that using this one factor alone is a better predictor of a pilots (and subsequently the passengers) chances of survival in a catastrophic failure emergency than any other factor including altitude an TT as PIC. It's probably the greatest determinant after luck.
Then there is the factor of value. I am a very visually oriented person and I love the view I get flying 180kts at 25', it makes me smile all day long. Without that flying would not have sufficient value to justify the expense. I really and truly prefer flying in the sub 100' realm, it's just expensive in fuel so I limit myself doing it unless I can justify it some how with operational need; I have 'needed' to update my personal alligator census before and flown across the Everglades at 25' with the landing lights on
. So cool all the eyes that glow back at you. One day they'll conspire and form up like runway light trying to lure in prey; Airplanes= Swamp Snax.
What I do is I choose to do is hedge my bets with the equipment I operate and operating it well by doing things like...I don't know... keeping freaking fuel in it? BTW, anyone who ownes a plane and doesn't have a digital fuel flow, you really should get one. Every time I get in a rental that doesn't have one I just can't imagine not having one in my plane.
So, in the end I prefer to spend extra money so I can fly with regards to joy rather than limit the experience by succumbing to the fear of the lack of options should something of the odds akin to getting a $20,000 lottery hit happens. If someone is paying me, or there is a view I would really like to experience, I will still do it single engine because I'm just not that afraid of the odds catching up to me, and I'm not that particularly afraid of dying either. Never met anyone that's managed to figure out how to not do it for too long. Regardless our reason for life, joy is a key element of it, I personally chose joy over fear, it's really pretty much that simple. I'm a complete hedonist.
