If that's the case, I would expect the side safety guns to be much higher grade. But all I've seen is the opposite.
I definitely would not call it a brilliant idea.
All you’ve seen is the opposite? You’ve never seen a high grade Greener FH or G with a side safety???? Those weren’t exactly “low grade” guns, Brent. A G70 Imperial is a low grade gun?? A G Royal? FH50,60,70’s? Not. Sounds like you need to get out and see more.
Well, it is the case. A common misconception is that you had to have a high grade gun to shoot at a driven shoot. There are plenty of pretty plain matched pair guns, especially boxocks out there (I’ve seen a few very plain W&S built Army and Navy’s sporting a 1 or 2 on them). Another somewhat common misconception is that all driven shoots were a “high end” activity.
Sitting in a wood pigeon hide isn’t exactly a high end affair either, lots of these guns were used for that too seeing how it was and still is a very popular thing to do in England. Sitting in a duck blind or shore bird blind (plover hunting) isnt extremely high end either.
Like I said, the safety wasn’t designed as a rough or walk system.
Germans & Austrians love brilliant ideas too. Many makers there also adopted the side safety.