Terrence O'Neill writes:

<<I have to point out a few things in your comments, if you don't mind.  Maybe you haven't thought about them in just this way. Keep your mind open, so you can consider shifting your attitude a little.  What you say is true, but I think -- incomplete.  You're talking about avoiding danger.  I'm talking about getting out of situations that are already BAD.>>

A bit smug, don't you think?  Not bad for an amateur who, as long as he can keep an open mind, might come to appreciate the wisdom of someone who, being 68 (or whatever) instead of only 58 has accumulated the wisdom of the ages (in addition to an inventory of AOA devices.)  Actually, my thoughts were complete in the sense that I said everything I wanted to say about AOA.  Completeness, in the sense of saying everything that can be said about AOA eludes all of us.

If you will take the trouble to read what I wrote, you will notice that I have nowhere said that AOA is a bad thing to have in an airplane. What I have said, is that neither it nor any other gadget is a substitute for good airmanship.  I suppose that, in the hypothetical situation you pose in which things are "already BAD", by which I assume you have in mind someone who is, without knowing it, very close to a stall or who has, to his complete surprise, just stalled, there may be some marginal advantage to having an AOA (to tell you what you just did wrong and hopefully to help you make it right) but for a pilot that is such a plumber as to have gotten himself into that BAD situation in the first place, I am not sure anything will help much.  The essential ingredient, both to avoid getting into BAD situations and to get out of whatever BAD situations you find yourself in anyway is good airmanship which, in turn is the result of flying knowledge and experience.  That knowledge and experience comes from flying airplanes on the edge at altitude and in controlled situations, preferably with an experienced instructor on board and through a broad range of aerodynamic conditions.  Apart from the 1g, under 20 degrees of bank stall sequence that every fledgling pilot goes through, this kind of instruction is entirely absent from the standard civilian curriculum.  The results are reflected in numerous NTSB reports.  It doesn't have to be that way.  Granted that the typical flight school usually has no one qualified to give this kind of instruction, five minutes on the internet will find you the name of a thoroughly qualified school that will give you as much as you can take.

What I object to is that these AOA devices are being promoted as "essential" safety devices meaning, I assume, that a pilot is safe with one and unsafe without one regardless of his or her flying knowledge and skill.  For the pilot who has been lucky enough or diligent enough to have received the kind of training on which true safety depends, this probably doesn't matter.  For the plumber whose poor airmanship puts him at risk of an inadvertent stall/spin, the illusion that advanced gadgetry can make up for poor flying skills (so it's OK to be a plumber as long as you have AOA) the concept is quite simply dangerous.