The grip safety on the 1911 is a workaround. If Browning had thought of a firing pin block, he'd have tried to persuade the army of that instead. It has the same original purpose, only allowing commanded firing. It is not entirely effective (easily out of tune, heavy so can intertia release on drop, etc).
On the other hand, essentially all firing pin drop safety blocks are entirely safe and solve that problem just fine.
Manually-disengaged safeties are hilariously unreliable. They are, across all guns, not especially safe (many don't work properly, can be defeated with dirt, with heavy trigger pulls) and especially for handguns: they come off in holsters.
Modern guns from major manufacturers are hilariously safe. Along with things like modern hand grenades (the M67 is not a modern hand grenade), among the safest devices ever made. They work every time, they never, ever, ever "just go off." Ever. Uncommanded discharges simply never happen.
The closest we get is the system being bad. Bad holsters, such as the Serpa (esp on glocks) but also others, encourage incorrect actions and lead to non-deliberate trigger pressing.
After that, it's down to users. If we want guns to be easy to use, there is a risk of misuse. Some of the lock systems (magna-trigger) were much much safer, but also much much harder to use for everyday purposes.
Why do people mistrust modern striker fired guns? Not sure. I mean aside from general fear of the new, it's hard to explain rationally. You could say that everything is happening inside, so it's obscure and obtuse, but go ahead, tell me what all is happening inside a revolver.