Sorry, but no. Respectfully but firmly disagree.

> You're argument about "exposed contacts" is absurd. The entire design of the US plug is exposed contacts. Anyone can and will find a way to use them in an unsafe manner. We allow people to eat with steak knives, despite them being able to cut their own jugular vein with them.

This is an absurd argument re electrical safety. We spend enormous time and effort idiot-proofing consumer-facing electrics, and for good reason, consumers are idiots, but even then they don't deserve to be electrocuted by mains power. "You eat with stake knives so you may just as well run barefoot through razor blades" is not a good faith argument.

> Almost all devices you are going to be using are rated for 90 VAC-240 VAC.

For a narrow range of modern tech devices with adapters, sure. For the average electrical appliance that people grey import from Alibaba or buy roadside in Kuala Lumpur?

"Almost all" - how many percent, exactly? Are you just thinking of your iPhone charger? Or are you thinking about some cheap night light that some mum is going to plug in because her kid is scared to fall asleep without it, or some Soviet-grade portable hand heater that some elderly babushka carries around with her?

This is typical engineer blindness. "Well the elderly semi-literate Russian babushka should obviously have known that her GOST 7396 space heater from some souk in Dushanbe was not one of the devices I was imagining when I put together my utterly-non-compliant Frankenstein socket..." Really? Why? Is that going to be persuasive to anyone?

> Some of them work all the way up to 277 VAC as a rated voltage.

What's even your point here? That high voltage devices... exist? What does that have to do with anything?

> This socket would be explicitly legal to install in almost any jurisdiction in the US so long as it has the right engineering documents.

And murder is explicitly legal to commit! (Terms and conditions apply, must be wearing camo and be pointed vaguely in the direction of the Strait of Hormuz.)

Your argument is almost entirely just trivia, and not even categorical trivia at that. 'Well, almost all devices do this...', 'some even work all the way up to... ', 'so long as the right documents are provided...'. These are not acceptable standards when dealing with the public. Consider that 'almost all' people do not steal, and yet we fill public spaces with security cameras.

When dealing with risk, you don't just consider likelihood and call it a day, you consider severity too. An event with potentially catastrophic consequences is something one takes seriously, even if deeply unlikely. There are probably tens of thousands of unsophisticated people in the air every second of every day, wanting to plug in their vape chargers and portable hand fans and god-knows-what-else.

When your Frankenstein socket - which quite explicitly adheres to no safety standard whatsoever - inevitably fails and causes property or health damage, and you're trying to explain why you ever thought it was a good idea to some safety auditor or, God forbid, a judge, how far do you think your steak knife analogy is going to take you? Or the curio that 277 V devices exist? Or the fact that this is illegal to install in a home, but you think you could get a special permit to do so - well, y'know, not after this incident, your Honour, but sort of abstractly speaking...