If you hike in the Southwest I am surprised you did not mention making a solar still for collecting water as a primary skill. Seems to me that water is about x10000 more crucial to survival than identifying a replacement for toilet paper. Although I grant you that cactus spines or salt bush twigs would make dreadful tp.

generally a given I would think

We have several active members who are involved with SAR and I think they would say these are far from a given, and the bulk of their (ahem) clients fail to do proper planning or take the recommended precautions. Even those who are described by loved ones as "experienced hikers" often fail at following the basics of safety, because when you've taken hundreds of hikes without a problem, you tend to slack off and think that exempts you from having to do the simple things every blessed time you hike.

One difficulty in emphasizing the sorts of survival skills you mentioned in your original post is that most hikers will never (and I mean never) take your advice to spend a good chunk of their recreational time pretending they are lost and practicing skills they never expect to use. So, your well-meant advice and freely offered knowledge will come to nothing. Whereas, drilling it into them over and over that they need to leave an itinerary and stick to it may actually result in their doing it more often than not.

I would not tell you to stop trying to offer that advanced knowledge to those willing to take it, but I would hope that you always start out by reminding people of the most basic, most useful, and most important precautions. Because these save more lives than any other thing you could tell them to do.