This is absolutely not the modern perception. The modern perception is that DOT is a joke and that a $120 SNELL or ECE helmet is better than a $500 DOT helmet.
Also, your statement about "european standards meant for racing" is nonsense. ECE is a standard for street use, and SNELL is an American standard.
There's probably other ways in which pros crash differently, making them a less than ideal sample of the overall cycling population.
And, on the other hand, cyclists who are casual enough to crash very differently to the pros probably wouldn't be looking up in-depth analyses of bike crashes when choosing a helmet either. They'll just buy the second cheapest one.
Because there's no one way to crash, there's hardly one way to test. Buy the most expensive helmet you can afford, more likely than not that it's a better product.
> There isn’t an ethical test for blunt force trauma in real life conditions, and bike crashes are very rarely reported if they don’t send the rider to the hospital.
There's one ethical source of data - televised bike races. Surely there are enough crashes recorded in publicly accessible videos to provide a fairly representative sample of how a human head moves when the helmet it's wearing hits the road.
> They can get away with it because it’s such an easy marketing sell- most people think their life is worth more than $250, so any helmet tech is a bet on the order of Pascal’s wager.
It's exactly the same with motorcycle helmets. You can get a DOT approved helmet for $150, but the general perception in the community is "if you have a $150 head, wear a $150 helmet". Then everyone pays $800 for helmets designed to European standards which are meant for racing, and give dubious benefit if any at normal road-going speeds (eg. see https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/automobiles/27SNELL.html).