Exactly, you're a victim of the kit mentality that tends to lock us into this sort of artificial constraint. The kit is "only for emergencies" to the point that people often hesitate to break into it when it is first needed because its not an emergency yet. Pretty soon it is an emergency which might have been averted.

The corollary is the multi-day hiker who gets lost, panics and fails to use his backpack full of food, shelter, stove, etc. because he's "surviving".

I don't like to carry things that are just for emergencies, with the possible exception of a PLB.