Dying absolutely does not carry the same weight as getting dazed by J. Random Trashmob, just because you say it should. The meat of the game is combat, that is what it revolves around. If you lose in combat, people feel like, well, they lost. If you get killed by a wolf three levels beneath you, you feel like a noob.
Circumnavigating trash mobs is not what what any player ever considers a game, it's just a random annoyance on the way to the actual game. Nobody cares about whether you 'win' at not pulling any trash on Endless Slog #4126 beyond the fact that a pull is yet another pointless and not-fun distraction until you actually get to the real game.
The bottom line: danger of dying is considered a 'real' because people care about it.