It's about perspective. One definition or opinion does not necessarily invalidate the other. Each is an expression of a point of view.
You say safety equipment. Others might say encumbrance, or unnatural performance enhancer, or laziness cheat. An apparatus that enables a lessening of difficulty, which eases the challenge.
When the goal is to engage a challenge, anything that renders the effort less challenging is a dilution of the very challenge as a whole.
Of course one must use safety equipment to examine the possibility of a raw attempt. But one builds on the experience, removing the unnecessary, wherever possible.
Of course it's easier to climb with a helmet and ropes, because those are the things that provide for obvious leverage to control the outcome. But who ever climbed a mountain because they wanted to do an easy thing?
The harder the task is, the better, in this context. The satisfaction of accomplishment is the goal, rather than the stress or all of the physiological byproducts or recognition that come as part of the package when completing the task.
Trying to do something, based on an intuition that an outcome is possible, when others lack the same intuition is the goal here.
This is not the same as fame. Fame is a derivative of the behavior of others, as outsiders to the activity.
To trust in one's intuition, and find that it is correct, is a fundamental aspect of human existence.
To divorce oneself of maximizing challenge, is to lie in bed all day as a shut in, and have your food delivered to you, in the most exaggerated sense of the comparison.