I've had zero accidents in my entire phone-owning life since 2004, including 3 smartphones. I still prefer the safety of cases. To me, you don't sound sanctimonious, you sound arrogant and risk-seeking. To each their own, I guess. I think cases are worth it and don't care about any of the alleged negatives. Others think differently.
That probably sounds a little bit sanctimonious, but it's the truth.
I have broken exactly one phone in my entire phone-owning life (since 2002), I've had 6 phones during this time, 4 feature phones and 2 smartphones. So one accident in 16 years, and that was a Sony Ericsson Elm. It was actually what pushed me to finally get a smartphone, so maybe it was a net positive :-)