Analog multimeters are not safe at all, never use them on high energy circuits.....
What do you imagine we used before DMMs?
The AVO 8 & the like were very well engineered, with large clearances, heavy insulation, & thick Bakelite cases.
Because they were large, meters of this class were not used handheld.
Instead, they were placed on the floor, rested on a "Tech's stool", or hung up by the handle.
In any case, the operator could be a metre or more away from the meter & still read it clearly, which reduced the possibility of injury in the very unlikely event of the meter case being breached.
In more than 40 years working at high power Radio & TV transmitter sites, I only saw one AVO 8 which had been "blown up".
The Bakelite case was not breached, the movement was clearly charred, the dial glass was cracked, but not
shattered.
DMMs are mostly used handheld, & have lightweight cases, so your chances of escaping injury are that much less.
I think you do not know at all the subtleties, or especially the weaknesses of the Avo 8 .....
First of all, I learned to drive with my father's Simca Aronde: this car had no seatbelts, no airbags, no ABS and was not crash tested ... and yet, everyone was driving with such insecure cars.
Safety standards have changed and it would be forbidden to drive today with such a car.
With regard to electrical safety, it's the same thing.
So to argue that we used in the past analog multimeters on high energy circuits, it's simplisly stupid.
You can't ignore actual safety rules.....
The avo 8 is very dangerous because it is the same terminals that are used for both the voltmeter and ammeter function .... an error can easily be made.
In addition, the so-called cutout protection does not protect anything because:
1) the breaking capacity of this cutout is very low
2) the protection is activated by the needle arriving at the end of scale stop ..... but if you are in range DC amps and you measure AC current, the needle does not move at all and does not cause the opening of the cut out.
Then, the principle that there is no danger because we do not hold the meter in hands is totally wrong and shows that you do not know anything about electrical safety.
On a high energy circuit, the risk comes from creating an arc that becomes explosive.
This arc is formed at the contacts, that is to say the test probes held by the operator and ionised air let the arc to close between phases with consequences of serious burns, damage to the eyes and a risk of electrocution.
With high energy circuits, every simple error have very serious consequences and it is not for nothing that the digital multimeters have special fuses with high breaking capacity in the current inputs.