Im not concerned particularly about the brakes. I always downshift by habit when braking, and just turn the car on way before I use up the booster. There is a funny story, about 8 years ago I was driving my S10 blazer (the one picture above, but before I went crazy with it) down a gravel road in the mountains. It didnt have any rear brakes to speak of becuase they were worn out and I wasnt going to change them because this was right before I did the axle swaps on it. I ended up sliding off the side of the road, 140 feet down a steep embankment. On the way down, I actually had enough thought to not only downshift as i was "driving" down the cliff, but I actually threw it into low range so that my engine braking was more effective. It came to a stop under control about 10 feet from a large tree. I then drove it forward those 10 more feet and parked it against that tree since there was no good parking brake. The front of the hood got a small dent that I never bothered to do anything with.
the last shot also shows my patented technique of getting out while in gear (low range) and rocking the truck to get better traction and get it unstuck.