I definitely agree with your last paragraph here.

One thing specifically about arborists—it is a sort of weird job, right? Homeowners can handle most normal trees. The arborist’s job is specifically to handle troublesome trees in weird environments. The problems look similar to ones that homeowners have, but they are more difficult (because nobody calls in the tree guys for an easy tree, right?). So I wouldn’t be surprised if they are uniquely prone to some extent, to wanting consumer gear with (some specific) guardrails removed, or used in creative ways.

By the numbers, I suspect the vast majority of trees that get chopped down get chopped down by loggers in specialized environments, with hyper-specialized equipment (that looks nothing like modified consumer gear). I suspect most engineers think of themselves as more like the loggers: cultivating that environment is a big part of it, and their tools are just different from consumer ones. If riskier, only because bigger moving parts involve greater energies.