Thoughts? I live in a wintery biome so having awd gives me a bit of peace of mind
Adding to this, AWD gives people a false sense of security and often leads to riskier driving behavior. It’s just like you said, there is absolutely no substitute for knowing how to handle difficult road conditions, anything that extends your confidence beyond your ability is dangerous.
I use all season tires year round. Unless you live in a very remote or hot part of the world: anytime it snows the city/county/state brings out the plows and salt and cleans the road. Yes winter tires are better on ice, but in reality you are almost never driving on ice anyway so it doesn’t make much a difference. Just slow down when it is icy and summer tires are fine. And you need to do that anyway because winter tires are better, but they are not perfect.