The point you and Eliezer (and possibly Vaniver) seem to be making is that "perfectly rational agents are allowed to get unlucky" isn't a useful meme, either because we tend to misjudge which things are out of our control or because it's just not useful to pay any attention to those things.

Is that a fair summary? And, if so, can you think of a better way to express the point I was making earlier about conceptually distinguishing rational conduct from conduct that happens to be optimal?

ETA: Would "rationality doesn't require omnipotence" suit you better?