This is an oversimplification and not universally true, but I do not wish to get into the details of it and addiction in general. We could brush away every decisions based on "chemical imbalances", too, if we so want. :)
> we should prefer opiates over ibuprofen/acetaminophen when the latter will do the job
Yes, after a careful risk assessment. If you are likely to get ulcers, or a stroke, or any cardiovascular events from NSAIDs, then you might want to consider something safer. Tylenol would be safer in this case, but what if that does not help with the pain at all? In any case, I do not necessarily disagree, and I was not advocating for blind consumption of opioids. If Tylenol works, take it with milk thistle (with high silybilin content) and you will be fine, even if you take it on the daily.
> regular consumption of acetaminophen causes hepatotoxicity, too
That would be misuse/abuse, though. The bottle label tells you to seek a doctor's advice if you need to take it longer than a certain period of time. Sure, people can fail to read that and not know about it, or just choose that the risk of complications is acceptable given their pain situation, but that's still not as bad as chemical dependence driving the decision-making.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should ban opiates or never prescribe them, and I imagine the result of the backlash toward decades of over-prescribing has been a foolish swing to the other extreme. But I still don't think we should prefer opiates over ibuprofen/acetaminophen when the latter will do the job. Maybe that's not what you were arguing, but I do take issue with your suggestion that opiates are safer.