Roy, you're still not quite understanding what we are talking about. Like a lot of riders, you ride, have fun, maybe do a few trips each year and it's all good. Some people go places. There are places and conditions where mud packing and large quantities of slurry thrown up on the bike are a serious issue and there are few places to pull off and do more than scrape the crap out and off of the bike.
Yep, you're right, the fender extender caught the skid plate and broke the fender. I need to do some changes there. I higher mounted fender is on my list of things to do anyway, as the clearance to the tire on the stock fender is only street worthy, imho, and won't cut it for where I will be riding this year.
The Haul Road in Alaska gets treated with a calcium chloride slurry that can be 6" deep of muck to slog thru for hundred miles at a time. This crap means you're stopping at every town to use the pressure washer to hose it off, because if it hardens, it's a really, really difficult mess to clean up. And the towns are close together. You never know when you will encounter this stuff, or if you will, but it's a regular thing on this 400 mile stretch of road. I'm sure you can find nasty, sticky mud in Mississippi, (I have), but if you end up at home at the end of the day, it's not a big deal. If you're thousands of miles from home and working with what you can find in a strange place, preventing build up instead of cleaning it off is a Good Thing.®
Thankfully we don't have a radiator mounted directly behind the tire, but there can still be issues with too much build up on the front of the engine and pipes.
You don't get it. No problem. That's not a big deal, but to me, it makes you sound like a local day rider guy that doesn't go anywhere. That's not a slam, it simply puts you in a different group of riders. Like the guys that mount full Sport-touring tires on their S10s. It's what meets their needs, but it's not for everyone.
