It's a good mechanism; for me the impetus was also partly that I didn't want to take that choice away from the player about how and when their character is no longer playable.
Oh, that's interesting. A character can't suffer trauma unless the player chooses to risk the stress. Have you had a situation in a game where a player felt like it wasn't their choice?
If you have four traumas and eight stress, it can feel like you don't have a choice. And sometimes that's appropriate, just not for what I'm aiming for with my game.