I wasn't aware we were allowed to be in "one of the single most powerful newtype pilots in canon" tier to start with. Because that's what Amuro is. His OYW combat data alone was overwhelming during Late UC mounted in a unit that, really, isn't that great. If you compare your character to an older Amuro it's seriously "top tier newtype pilot". Also a mental attack would've been just as bad if not worse. Mental attacks are supposed to be rare as fuck. The one big example is Paptimus "I'm a ridiculously powerful newtype endboss" Scirocco doing it to Kamille in a situation of extreme duress (he was literally 2 seconds away from dying or so), aided by the bio-sensor and Kamille being emotionally spent from watching most of his friends die and putting it all into one final attack. It would've cheapened something that's supposed to be a serious endgame moment, worse than what happened with trans-am, and then we can argue whether you'd be able to get through an innovade on rip-n-tear mode at all, or make enough of an impact to stop trans-am as you did.