European plugs (especially German style) are far superior, and European two pin plugs never fall off sockets. That is only a problem with US plugs.
The reason for a fuse is because of the high current capacity of ring circuits vs branch/radial. The fuse protects the power cable of appliances catching fire as they can’t handle the current available on the circuit .
Ring circuits are a thing due to minimizing copper usage when rebuilding after ww2.
Fuse: I'm not familiar with ring circuits and everything you mentioned, though I was aware it's for fires. Other places (and the UK as well in most apartments I had) have centralized fuse boxes. Is this still needed?
Either way, these are reasons for why things were done the way they were done, but reasons aside, the usability is inferior.
Sadly it carried on for far too long, my house built in the nineties has it.
The wiring system was designed during world war II when there was a copper shortage and someone calculated that it used less to use larger conductors to several sockets than to run smaller individual ones to each socket.
“Just baby proof” means remembering to keep those little plastic covers in place in every outlet. That doesn’t seem like superior usability.
Child protected schuko sockets exist and work just fine. We have them installed in our place and I never had an issue with them. Neither do things fall out, nor can you poke at them with a screwdriver.
I'd choose UK plugs over US plugs any day of the week, but I still think EU plugs are 10x better than UK.
I, at least, try and dispose of any non-plastic-coated plugs though.
One common complaint I get from my newly arrived expat colleagues is that their PC gives them slight electric shocks when they use it. IANAE (I am not an electrician), but I assume that this is because of some capacitor voodoo in the PC's power supply. The problem is cured by grounding the assembly.
The British plug/socket embodies the British ethos: nanny state, 'cannot be too careful' etc. In British parlance it is 'belt and braces'. But yes I agree it may be overkill.
In absolute terms, yes. But in 30 years I have never seen a 2-pins europlug fall from a socket on its own. I still prefer the French plugs with the Earth pin (and I quite like the British one as well), but europlugs are fine and really not comparable to American plugs.