Are you saying that you should look at the probability distribution of returns, rather than only the mean of that distribution? A 1.00 chance of a 1.0%-inflation real return is significantly different from a coin flip with 0.50 chance of losing everything and 0.50 chance of 102%-inflation real return, even though their expected values are equal.

Perhaps we should instead assign a utility function to rate of return; it's entirely reasonable that the utility difference between a 500% return and a 600% return is much smaller than the difference between losing everything and keeping what you have.