Yes. Not every issue is an issue of hiker experience. The experienced die all the time
In the case of Mirror Lake switchbacks, some trail improvement can help. It won't solve it, but it can help. To argue that trail improvement won't help at all, is untrue. Ergo, worth petitioning.
Nothing helps like experience, but even experience falls to tragic mistakes, and even bad timing.
Again, tell me how this happens? A petition is not worth the bytes and time. I know what it took to put 7 or 8 directional signs on Mt. Baldy this summer and that is not in a Wilderness area...a friend was involved in this project. Mt. Baldy was and is the land of the lost, and dead in winter. The only thing that will work right here and right now is hiker education.
The problem is we have a new bred of hiker. They young, aggressive and narcissistic...want to do what they want to do when they want to do it. Mt. Whitney is a magnet for these people...just like the Six-Pack of Peaks. They are experienced but they come without the 10 essentials to varying degrees and very little knowledge of the area they hike in. I ask them quite regularly, how do get out of an area, if a fire blocks your return route. I get a 10,000 yard stare. When I ask do you have a map, they have a picture of the message board or less. These are your experienced hikers today.
Experienced hiker is a useless term used by the media to describe those involved in a backcountry incident. I know a lot of experienced elite hikers I would not to out with to PCH at Main in Huntington Beach. They are that unsafe. All you need to do is read the US Hiking Club Meetup 2/6/16 outing at Wild ideas.