The stories I have heard about food poisoning, especially if it turns out to be some kind of mass casualty event, is usually that the food was already cooked or otherwise prepared, and not held at a proper temperature or stored properly.
A few months ago, my sister found an open can of bread crumbs in our mom’s pantry, expiration date 2008 and they still looked fresh. She pitched them, and TBH I don’t think I would have wanted to eat those in 2007 if they still looked good now.
Not technically from my own kitchen, but I did get nasty food poisoning (suspected salmonella) from a pre-cooked grocery store chicken pot pie that I reheated. It smelled and tasted great; the only hint that there might be a problem was the wicked heartburn I experienced shortly after eating, which was very unusual for me. As a bonus, I didn’t immediately link the initial symptoms to food poisoning, so I proceeded to eat more of the pot pie the next day. 
I also got sick from some marinated mushrooms that I kept for too long…in that case, there was something not quite right about the taste/texture, but those things weren’t cheap…
And I keep condiments waaaaaaaay past their “best before” dates. This really isn’t a problem, since I keep everything in the fridge, but I’ve had ketchup turn dark. (It was fine, but it had lost all the subtle flavors…it tasted only of very plain tomato ketchup.)
I mean that’s one way of looking at it. On the other hand it’s a spectrum and it doesn’t stop there, what about eating any steak that’s not well done? Eating any chicken, period? Eating at any food you didn’t prepare yourself? On the other end of the spectrum… what if it had been two weeks? What if it hasn’t been in the fridge?
They all entail some risk and some cost to give up, its up to you where you draw the line. For me while the scenario in the OP is a pretty small cost (to discard the chicken) it’s also a very very low risk. It’s a no brainier to cook it carefully. But I have an aversion to throwing food out, if you have no problem with that but have an aversion to any food that might even possibly have gone off, then throw it out.
Yes, it’s a spectrum.
However at one end you have freshly cooked food, which rarely causes a problem.
At the other hand you have food that is past it’s use-by date / may not have been stored properly / looks + smells suspicious.
The risk between these two categories is very different.
(I do agree with you that it’s a shame to throw food out.)
I had food poisoning only once. I baked a frozen pizza and added some olives and veggies from a mixed salad with dressing that had been in the fridge for a while – I’m not sure how long. I’m still not sure of the exact cause, but it was a horrible experience for a few hours where I was almost ready to call for an ambulance before it started to improve.
One theory is that the pizza had gone bad due to being left out at room temperature at some point in the shipping/stocking process, but that seems unlikely. Or it might have been the salad ingredients, but I’m generally pretty casual about exceeding expiry dates on most perishables and never had a problem.
Speaking of which, I just threw out a baking potato. My problem with potatoes is that even though I keep them in a dark and fairly cool cupboard, they often start to sprout within a week or two. I don’t mind tiny sprouts and just cut them off, but this one got my attention because it did not start to sprout, like it was a deceased potato. I eventually threw it out when it started to get a bit soft.
You sure it wasn’t just pining for the fjords?
Rotten potatoes are incredibly disgusting.
I’m quick to toss anything that looks wrong or smells off. And if i taste something and it tastes spoiled, I’ll toss the rest of the dish. But i don’t discard food just because of a sell-by or use-by date unless it’s WELL past the date. And then it usually looks and smell wrong, too.
That’s my point its not very different, between an uncooked piece of chicken you just brought back from the store and one that’s been in the fridge a few days. I mean it’s raw chicken, I would always cook and handle it assuming it has some really nasty germs on it, in either case. There is a little more risk with the latter but difference in risk is pretty small IMO. Its up to you how seriously you weigh that risk vs the cost of throwing the chicken out.
And that’s why I personally store my own potatoes in the refrigerator, even though that is not generally recommended. I’ve heard too many horror stories.
I’ve found a rotten potato in the back of the refrigerator several times.