Are you still harping on the activity not being exactly the same as Combat?
The subject is the loss of control and its affect on safety, not what caused the loss of control. We could have a contest to see who's TX is most Soda Resistant by pouring soda on it till your plane crashes. The point is, in events that will cause planes to crash more frequently than plain flying, safety precautions & measures must be taken. It doesnt matter what you were doing that made OutofControl more or less frequent than Combat, the fact is Combat does have safety rules for when it happens, because it does happen.

Clearly, flying combat at all would be reckless because it is far more likely to cause OutofControl than Standard Flying the traffic pattern. But they saw that planes do lose control in combat, and issued safety rules for when they do. Read that again- planes do lose control in combat, and issued safety rules for when they do. The helmet rule is not to prevent loss of control, it is for when the plane does lose control. How could the AMA say any activity that is so unsafe as to require helmets for its participants not be reckless? Easy- they placed procedures & measures to minimize the terminal effect of what happens WHEN a plane loses control. What makes Unsafe not be reckless? An AMA PDF I guess.

IF we add that all spectators within 250' must be behind a cage, that would not be the AMA combat rules, it would be better than AMA combat rules. And you are correct STL, Better is not the Same As.