Herk Fixer, you are right ON the money here. If we can just learn from all that has already happened, at least we might gain some understanding when things go wrong on us.
Sometimes even a simple comment can be valuable just a few flights later... Regarding losing steering control on the runway, in an airplane with a tiller for steering: I had a very, very high-time guy say that you can always "steer" from the right seat (at relatively low speeds), even when the nose steering tiller is way over on the LEFT side, by compensating for that by getting the WEIGHT OFF THE NOSEWHEEL by holding full aft elevator. No weight=no effect, right? So... when the guy in the left seat gets on the tiller too soon, and you're departing the runway, and headed off to the toolies, well.. even though the "steering contorl" is WAY over there, (out of reach!! EEK), you still have options to FLY THE AIRPLANE.
It wasn't more than a few days after this comment when a great guy, who just hadn't been in the airplane in a long time, got in, and even though we discussed how touchy the nose steering is, you guessed it, we were off the side of the runway in a split second. Happily, I managed to recall those words, and yes, it makes a big difference, and we stopped so soon anyway, it was no big deal. But... I was struck by the TIMING.
I wish I could somehow go through this aviation life, and just fill up my head with words like these, from these highly experienced pilots. I read every accident report I can get my hands on, just to try to glean those bits of information. There are lots of clues to help us out there... if we could only gather them all.