> As a British speaker of English, I would hesitate to use "had better" in
> a context such as this. I would prefer to rephrase the sentence
> completely.

Hm, really? Probably part of the difference between US and British
English... What would you say?

I'll elaborate on the context of the sentence I want to convey (as far as it
is possible with one-liners in a teaser, of course):

As the Teaser says, man is good at getting close to perfection. I then show
a fuse closing in on a stick of dynamite, suggesting another series of
improvements upon that matter. The end-result of an improvement of a stick
of dynamite is debatable, is it just to create more forceful explosions? Or
what about the Neutron bomb, killing only organic matter? It's something I
want to hint at, but not elaborate upon. So I end with saying that with some
things, improvement can be dangerous. And, as is the setting of the short,
mankind blew himself up with the improvements. And thus:

"Some things would better have been left 'imperfect'..."

shortly followed by

"Because that's how he wiped himself off the earth."

Would that be correct, or still clumsy?

Regards,
Tim

-- 
aka "Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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