The other side of that argument is that on most systems the pitot only provides air speed. Most will have ground speed with their GPS. A pitot can easily be done without.
I used to agree with the above,
however it is only true in day VMC and totally clear night VMC in an airframe you are very accustomed to. From experience, not as easy with the canopy iced over and useless for landing.
In IMC day or night if your glass Attitude Information and or synthetic vision is compromised from lost pitot and the auto pilot is useless from the same lost pitot, or static info, it is a situation best avoided. I suggest a study on the following 3 flights.
All 3 AC had accurate ground speed and accurate gyro attitude information.
2 of the 3 had multi thousand hour captains in the LH seat. All were lost for blocked pitot or static ports in the case of 603.
Birgenair Flight 301 B757
Aeroperú Flight 603 B757
Air France 447 A330
Flight in IMC is a totally unforgiving environment.
Most sport grade glass is evolving more reliable, however, loss of accurate pitot and static information will confuse most of it at best. Ditto with several of the autopilots. A bad GPS ant. can render all of a ships GPS equipment useless.