I'm in Australia (and wrote the comment above yours) and was taught to drive (late 1970s) using a higher hand position - "ten and two" but without that phrasing.

Also to always have two hands on the wheel, sliding it through one hand by a solid grip of the other .. all centred about off bitumen rough road driving with unexpected dips, cambers, holes that might catch you by surprise.

I suspect the higher hand position gives a greater advantage in older vehicles with direct under geared mechanical steering as there's more travel from the hand griping position downwards around the arc before "running out of travel" and having to move that hand .. ie better control on bad roads with odd cambers etc.

As a fellow Australian I can agree and see some good points in this. However I also think it no longer applies to post 2020 cars in a city/urban environment.

When I was in driver's ed in high school in America, there was a push to teach 8 and 4.

As far as I am aware, teaching students 10 and 2 has long since been phased out supposedly due to the increase of arm injuries in the event of an accident. 9 and 3 wasn't recommended to us because if your air bag deploys, your right arm will smash into your passenger or the passenger air bag. 8 and 4 is supposed to be safer but it comes with the caveat that you have to steer your car a specific way.

That being said, I prefer 9 and 3 and it's hard to find drivers in America that don't use this position as their default.

9 & 3 is the best for control, but you're right, it's worse in case the airbag deploys. 10 & 2, I imagine, is even worse, since you always have an arm in front of the airbag in that case, so your arm might be propelled into your face if it goes off. 8 & 4 helps, but seems pretty bad for control, but on highway trips it's more relaxing I think.