I agree with everything you said except shoe-in, because it’s shoo-in.

But you articulated (better than I was going to) the number one issue. Power companies need insurance and their insurance will be affected if ordinance permits basically unchecked generators being plugged into the grid. And before anyone says it, you are not allowed to just plug your generator into your house. Does it happen? Yeah, people have been dumb since day one.

But there are transfer switches that allow for this operation in a safe manner, and the easiest way to deal with this is to have them installed by default in new construction, and to provide incentive for upgrading your panel to include one.