I wouldnt say you are being sensative. If you ever want to experience Sturgeon fishing come out with me for a day and I will show you what its like. I would say 90% of the fish we catch we can get the hook out of them from the side of the boat. Its those fish that are about 7' and over that make it difficult to land without pulling anchor. Caring for the mortality rate of any fish is not a bad thing infact its a good thing.
After reading your posts more carefully I see you are just caring and not just badgering people. The more educated people are the better and from the looks of things it seems as though you are doing your research.
When we beach fish we usually don't take the fish completely out of the water. We will infact leave them in enough water so that their gills are atleast half covered in water. If we want a picture we will get in the water with the fish, than all of us will lift the fish out of the water for a quick pic and off he goes.
Here is a pic of a 7 footer I got last year to show what I mean.
Their was only two of us when we caught this fish. So we could not lift him up for a pic. So we left him in the water and after the pic we got him back out into the river.