While writing our training text for our winch endorsement program and looking ahead at new student training we began with many of the same ideas in mind regarding launch failures as stated here. In doing some research we discovered that most accidents originate from this launch failure training. Of course we can't stick our heads in the sand, but maybe there are better ways to train for these failures? Any one who's winched will agree that it's the sudden change in tasks that screws the accident pilot up. With out a well thought plan in mind it's easy to screw up at low altitude following a failure. The zero time student may be at an advantage here. They need dozens of launches to solo and will have more experience generally flying at these lower altitudes than their endorsement counterpart. This is because they will make use of their energy to complete a few turns and even grab a thermal once in a while as part of their training before entering the pattern instead of racing back for the next launch. Consider power pilot training, before flying traffic patterns we fly ground reference maneuvers before countless take offs and landings. But do we pull engines on multi engine students at 50 feet? Do we practice spin recovery at traffic pattern altitude? Winch training could be done with a similar philosophy. The push overs described by Karl are a great example of gaining one of the needed skill sets at a safe altitude. Additionally, an instructor may brief a maneuver to be flown from a prescribed height, say 200, or 400 agl to over fly the runway and fly an abbreviated pattern or land straight ahead. This gives the student the needed experience when the are mentaly ready to take in the information, rather than going "bang" you're at 200 agl! Real Simulated low level failures should still be taught but maybe doing six of them or more isnt needed if the student has other (better) experience at low altitudes and is an unnecessary risk. The BGA and DAeC spent a lot of time and effort looking into this, let's take their advice.
I agree with all of the launch numbers and advice mentioned above about site specific training, aircraft check out and changing weather. I even agree with the Troll above about maintaining the winch and having proper winch operator training and checkout procedures.
On a side note it's a shame in the USA we need to scrape together this type of information. The BGA and DAeC have done an excellent job of caring for their constituents. Each year in the past 5 about 2 new winch operations have started up with more on the way. I strongly recommend modeling your entire winch program after one of these industry leaders rather than making it up based on bits and pieces gathered around to fit your preconceptions. That method has been done to death here in the States...

-Doug