There no reason to "panic" about perfectly reasonable, valid use cases. `head` and `tail` in Haskell are badly designed (to address one of your examples), which

There no reason to "panic" about perfectly reasonable, valid use cases. `head` and `tail` in Haskell are badly designed (to address one of your examples), which is why every SO question about them and every question on haskell-beginners ends with the same answer: don't use them, pattern match instead.