I'm real old fashioned.
What makes the most difference is knowing the manual of arms with your handgun. This means LOTS of hands on repetition. Thousands of repetitions presenting your handgun from the leather. 99% of this can be done dry in your living room. Likewise thousands of rounds of dry fire.
I prefer Colt 1911's. The thumb safety is part of my muscle memory : how I grip, where my thumb goes (and stays: on top of the thumb safety), where my index finger goes, and when.
I think the biggest problem is finding a shooting location where you can actually shoot from the leather: few ranges allow it, so most folks don't get to actually practice shooting from the leather. And most folks won't do the homework (thousands of presentations from the leather) at home.
The safety less firearms scare me - in the hands of the incompetent. Unfortunately, few folks put in the time to develop the skills necessary to become competent.
In my experience, ND's are much more common with safety less handguns than with 1911 style handguns. Not only are garden variety NDs more common with non safety handguns, they are more likely to inflict injury on the gun owner: I know of ten NDs holstering a weapon using a polymer, striker fired non safety pistol for every similar ND with a 1911 type. I admit this isn't a scientific survey: just represents ND's I know about over the last 35 years
I think folks would do better putting in the time to learn the thumb safety than try to do without it
Just my opinion, of course.
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