David Megginson wrote
Still, if you're not a freight dog struggling to survive at the bottom of
the aviation food chain, a medevac pilot with a dying patient, or a pilot in
an emergency with flames shooting out from under the cowling, why push down
below minima when you cannot see the runway clearly even if it is
technically legal (say, because you made out a few of the approach lights)?

Because it's not just technically legal - it's entirely acceptable if
you use the right techniques - exactly the techniques you claim are a
bad idea. Also because diverting to the alternate means you didn't
get where you wanted to go when you wanted to be there. I think it
makes sense to maximize the utility of the airplane by flying to
published minima, rather than some higher minima required to
accomodate substandard flying technique.

We seem to lose a lot of good, experienced IFR pilots to approaches in IMC,
both in Canada and the U.S., and I suspect that one of the reasons is
pushing too far when there's not a clear visual transition available.

I don't buy that in the least. I suspect the real reason we lose so
many is the abysmal quality of initial training and the almost
non-existent recurrent training, combined with a real lack of
understanding of what you can and can't do. Lack of a clear visual
transition is a fact of life when shooting approaches to visibility
minima.

Michael