RE: Do NOT risk your life NEEDLESSLY...
Statistics show that 1 out of 3 treestand users will have a fall. Some percentage of these result in serious permanent injury or death. You are right, we all make choices on where we draw the line on "over carefull" things. Personally, this isn't one of them. I have fallen once, a step broke about 10 feet up while I was climbing down, I always thought I would be able to just grab on if it happened, I had one arm around the tree, one tightly on a step, one foot on a step and was reaching down to the next step. The one holding my weight broke, I was on the ground before I knew what happened. Luckily it was a soft feet first landing and I just lost some skin/blood from my arm and hand.
This is something I will have for next year in the trees.