Might have been better spent. Might have. Say that it was better spent is just begging the question.
That he didn't get the pump can be blamed as much on poor risk mitigation as it can be on avoiding unnecessary expenses. Having a cavalier and dismissive attitude toward mitigating future risks can result in a demonstration of exactly how faulty one's prioritizations really were.
Don't fall into the trap of assuming just because things were done out of assumed necessity, they were the right things to do.
There are all sorts of risks, and it isn't obvious when it is worthwhile to get insurance and when it isn't. One risk is never launching.
Right. I'm not saying become paralyzed due to the risks. And I'm not saying do dumb things that mitigate a risk with an even bigger risk. What I'm saying is don't assume your conclusions. Things that other people might argue are important might not seem that important to you, given whatever perspective you have at the time. It is possible part of the reason they argue for using a certain practice is because they, too, didn't see it as important until they got burned hard for their presumption.
This is not to say they are important. It might be that people are just squawking to sell books or consulting hours or seats at a conference. But, to use a really dumb metaphor, if that many hens are squawking about the same thing, it might be time to look in the barn and see what all the noise is about.