1. Is your thirst for the ultimate tail light sort of a geek hobby like mine regarding headlights?
Nope, I get a Superflash when I need one and call it good.
2. How old are you?
42
3. Have you been struck by a car and are somewhat paranoid?
I've been hit and I've hit cars, not paranoid, though.
4. (this one is important to me) When there's a perfectly good sidewalk / paved path paralleling the street...why do you stay on the street in the way of traffic, risking your life and the lives of the idiots who don't see us until it's too late so they slam on the brakes and get rear-ended by a delivery truck? I just don't see the bother in hitting the sidewalk when I've been told by officers: "Sure...it's the 'law' to ride on the street...but you cause less problems when you ride on the sidewalk, so we'd prefer to have you ride there."
Most sidewalks are worse than most roads for riding. One stretch of my commute is a gauntlet of busy business driveways. This stretch of road even has a bike lane, but I still spend a fair amount of time in the traffic lane because a lot of people coming outta Fred Meyer's, McDonald's, BR31, Taco Bell, etc. just kinda coast way out into the bike lane before even looking for cross traffic. Quite a few peds on this stretch of road, too, so sidewalk is generally bad news.
Another stretch of my commute is about 1.5 miles with about 8 seldom used driveways. It has a bike lane too, but I hit the sidewalk a lot when it rains because the sidewalk drains better than the bikelane in the gutter. I find it fairly easy to be vigilant around widely spaced driveways compared to a driveway every 30-50 feet.
Oh, and IJM made a good point about speeds on sidewalks. I go as fast as I can, but slow to about 5mph when approaching a driveway, unless it has WIDE-OPEN sight lines.
EDIT: Threads without pics are boring, so here's a pic of the sidewalk cycling friendly leg of my commute:
