Ron,
I think all this safety conciousness is great. For most of us this is a hobby and clearly doesn't rise to the moral equivilent of war. So, we clearly don't need casualities. That said, I think your fixture is safer and will produce more accurate results on your saw than other methods. I say your saw, because you have a very high quality fence capable of repeatable and accurate adjustments while remaining properly aligned with the blade. Wouldn't use it on my old Craftsman, which can't repeat anything. I'd fit a better fence, but I have a hard time getting past paying twice as much for a fence as I did for the saw!

Additionally, given the quality of your saw, once you've made the first cut your work piece is jointed and won't vary in width. I have to admit to reaching beyond the blade, when I had less experience, to retrieve a narrow cut and having the blade snatch it and throw its splinters back at me. That's why I like your "outside" delivery of the narrow cut.

Lastly, the genius of you setup is that you don't have to adjust everything for each cut, just your fence. To my mind this is a lot safer than adjusting finger-featherboards with each pass. I find getting the right adjustment of the boards the most difficut to make. As the boards are your protection against kickback proper adjustment is critical. With your setup once you've got'em right they stay that way and no lapse in adjusting them can cause kick back. All this and a good product, too! It's enough to make me spring for that fence.

The skate wheel entered my mind, but I'm sure I've got something in my bearing collection that will do. Thanks.
Geo. C.