Roger the Rabbit I've seen Wayne Rooney, and Pearce is no Wayne Rooney !
Not really a good comparison to select a bunch of players with honours coming out of their ears who quite clearly 'made it'. What about all the young players who get stuck in forst teams at 17 and are touted as the 'next big thing' and never make it ...
The 'best' managers don't pick players based on their age, they pick the players they need to do a job and they will absolutely consider the 'risk' to the players. At the simplest level they would be in breach of Child Protection rules if they didn't, beyond that they would not be doing their job !!
Pearce has been in three relegation battles in the last two seasons, I'm not sure another one would have phased him too much.
The point is the 'risk' to the player wasn't there, or at least it was extremely minimal. I think Pearce or Henry would find your Child Protection point to be rather patronising to be perfectly honest, along with Karacan.