I voted for California's HSR once, but never again, since it's just so terribly expensive for what we get, despite my love of rail in general.

I do have some responses to your reasons:

1. Where's the data? I didn't think anything was safer than air, if one uses passenger-miles as the denominator (and fatalities in the numerator), nor that conventional rail has a particularly stellar record in this country.

2. I would imagine exactly the opposite is true, since rail is, by definition, limited to a fixed route. Assuming an extensive highway system (such as exists in the US), cars can drive around bad weather. Air travel, though perhaps more sensitive to lesser severity of weather, has even greater avoidance flexibility.

3. As someone who enjoys driving, the flip side to this is that relaxation begets boredom. Still, your point is well take, but it also could apply to air travel.

4. Although one can't steer a train into the Pentagon, I don't see how HSR would be immune to terrorism, especially considering that rail stations tend to be located in population centers, whereas airports tend to be remote.

5. This, again, is probably more applicable to air travel, given that a jet's speed is 2-3 times that of HSR. The trouble is that, unlike my car, a train doesn't pick me up at my origin, nor drop me off at my destination. Then, there's the issue of added latency, which, for a car, is close to zero. For a scheduled service, it's the amount of time until the next scheduled departure, plus a certain buffer time for checkin, baggage handling, and "security" procedures. This stretches out the door-to-door time to something much more competitive to driving, even without risking a speeding ticket.

Driving the 345 miles from my home near San Jose's airport to downtown LA could be done in 5.5 hours, with no stops and no speeding ticket risk. A flight takes about 45 minutes in the air, and the HSR trip is supposed to take 2.5 hours (presumably including stops).

Door-to-door, driving is still 5.5 hours. Air travel adds at least half an hour to get to and from the airport, another half hour to get on and off the plane, and at least another quarter hour for getting to the gate early enough, assuming no check in, checkpoint pantomime, baggage, or other delays, for a grand total of 2 hours (well, 3 hours if I'm trying to get into downtown LA at the wrong time). Even if the train is a quarter hour faster to get on and off, that's 3.5 hours.

If I'm going to Pasadena, driving is still 5.5 hours, but air and rail are 2.5-3.5 and 4. Add Threat Level Burnt-Umber to the equation, and air jumps to 3.5-4.5. I imagine that, until the first terrorist incident, HSR will remain at 3.5.

If I can't leave until noon, when flights (and, presumably, trains) are only once every couple-three hours, driving is 5.5 hours, air 4.5-5.5, and HSR 5.5.
Suddenly, I'm wondering where all my saved time went :)

A worse air travel scenario actually occurred in recent memory, where a combination of my travel companion's schedule restrictions, excessive waits at the checkpoint, and mechanical trouble, caused flying to take longer door-to-door than driving would have, with only a net break-even for the round trip.