No, keeping a separate non-root account around is what's kind of silly. If my user account is compromised, the attacker can ruin my credit and reputation, end

No, keeping a separate non-root account around is what's kind of silly. If my user account is compromised, the attacker can ruin my credit and reputation, end all my friendships, drain my bank account, and sell my entire life history to an eager 3rd party. If my root account is compromised, the attacker can do all of those things as well as add a printer, or delete a file that I can download freely from the Internet. I don't really care about that additional attack surface.