I'm curious as to whether this forum considers my position on the Laws to be fundamentally unfair. Controversial, I'm fine with, as I see virtually every position on the Laws can (and is) protested, but I'm less cool with reading the Laws in a way that's unfair to spellcasters.
My general position is that if you're regularly throwing around lots of shifts of power aimed at mortals, you're going to be risking Lawbreaking, or at least the Wardens. As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as absolutely "safe" magic when you're throwing it at humans. Sleep magic is shown to be potentially lethal at high-powers with Agatha Hagglethorn. When Harry does it in Turn Coat, he says it's considered "grey magic". The mind fog is considered a violation in Summer Knight.
So if you're going to consistently throw around masses of power, and then try to narrate it as "and they all took enough damage to be Taken Out, while somehow surviving" I'm probably going to balk and suggest that you're pushing it beyond the "realm of reason". For me, the "
World of Cardboard"* nature of Wizards in the Dresdenverse is a key part of the setting. It's like Luccio said in Turn Coat:
And for gaining control over others, for gathering great power to oneself, there is no better tool than black magic... Without resorting to black magic, the amount of damage an individual can inflict on mortal society is limited... the Laws of Magic are not about justice... They are about restraining power
That just doesn't fit with Wizards who are able to frequently and safely disable other humans.
And even if you are regularly burning someone close to death and leaving them, or putting people into comas, or anything else of the sort, you're certainly going to have the Wardens sitting on your ass, just waiting for you to push it. In fact, I don't see them messing around with people who get even close to breaking the Laws. According to canon they're not too concerned about whether or not you're actually guilty.
*
"I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control even for a moment, or someone could die"