Maybe I'm biased, but I say that anyone who uses stops has voluntarily left the "average investor" realm and entered the "amateur day trader" arena

> > How does a flash crash hurt the average investor?

> Maybe it can trigger "stop loss" orders?

The average investor is a person who has a pension invested across a range of funds held with large fund management companies. Anyone mis-using stoplosses is not an 'average' investor.

Running stops was a common pit trader game.