carpediemracing 

That's my point. A lot of the guys I used as examples of "crashing while not on the drops" are much stronger than me, and a lot of them could realistically ride me off their wheel in a few minutes. It's super obvious, at least to me, that I was surrounded by significantly stronger riders at the White Plains Crit.

However if they're not on a wheel for minutes at a time, if they're on the deck or nursing a broken bone, then by default I have a much better chance of beating them in that race. In fact I'd say that most of the riders I line up with on a given race day are much stronger than me. This means I have to reduce the odds of something happening to me, reduce the energy expenditure on my part, and hope that things turn out my way. Not hitting the deck and moving to the front when it counts is pretty much my whole race strategy.

I'm sort of like the back marker F1 team, like a Marussia. I absolutely positively definitely don't have the pace. Therefore I have to rely on being as reliable as possible. If a bunch of guys take themselves out of the running (by crashing, by attacking repeatedly, etc) then my chances of doing well go up.

Obviously there's more to racing than just where you hold your bars. However by controlling some of the variables a racer can reduce the chance of hitting the deck, increase their control level minutely, and therefore increase their chances of doing well in a race. Holding the drops is like wearing a seat belt. It doesn't do much most of the time, but when you need it it really, really helps. I think I hit my own seat belt once in, what, like 30 years of driving? But that doesn't mean I don't put one on every time I drive the car. Likewise on the bike I'll go to the drops when things are iffy around me because it's the safest place to be. To ride somewhere else isn't as "reliable" and a new racer ought be limiting potential problems, especially with control related stuff.

Also, to reiterate, my bars aren't low relative to my saddle. They're low relative to, say, the front wheel, but that has nothing to do with how low my bars are relative to my saddle. When I'm out of the saddle my body points up. Even when I'm sprinting my torso is not as low as other racers out there. I just have short legs so everything is lower, the bars and the saddle.