Slitherine

Hello again. Hope you recognize me, Nacho.
I'm here to discuss countdown and launch preparations failures.

First of all, launch preparations are preparations for a reason. Checking the rocket and the capsule's systems to verify it's safety, allowing the mission planners to scrub or continue the mission.
If they could verify all systems, why not simply abort a launch without killing the cosmonauts or astronauts inside?
Yes, there were cases like the ones in Apollo 1, but they were so sparse it would be better to have just a variable to randomise the chance of a total failure.
Now with the countdowns.
Yes, countdowns may result in explosions or structural failures, but isn't that what the escape tower is all about? Most crafts had it. At least saving the cosmonaut/astronaut would be a nice addition.

Please let me know your opinions on this.

Re the Escape Tower

For one of the Soviet Missions, I had a failure just after launch and the failure text indicated that the Launch Escape System worked and the Crew survived, coming down in Siberia
I wish I had noted down the mission and stage, but I have no idea why that was a rare occasion when a failure didn't kill all the crew, as I have had a Soviet Space Plane fail on the Landing Stage and "come down short but the pilot ejected" and still lose the crew.