Okay, let me give you some examples that my family has been through. Back in the late-80s and earily very earily 90s, my parents had an 1982 Olds Cutlass Supreme RWD. Although the snow wasn't too terribly deep, it would take close to an hour just to get from the garage to the road. The drive way we have is not a very big one by any extend of the imagination, it just couldn't get any traction in snow despite the fact that the tires were in very good shape and my father, who grow up on a farm miles from a small town in an area that just had 11 inches of snow at one point last year which isn't even close to a record for this area, my father who drives on back roads all the time, puts 35,000 miles a year just on his company car, who is very experience in snow and icy road conditions still struggled to get it out of the driveway. Then in 1991, we replaced that thing with a Caravan and didn't have problems anywhere close to that again because we don't own anymore RWD cars.

Also my brother tried once to drive without the 4WD on his truck, and after traveling at 10 mph over an S curve, landed in the ditch. After putting it in 4WD, he was able to get out of the ditch without any help. He did have weight in the back for the record.

Back in 2000, my Grandparents needed to go to the store for supplies before Christmas. I don't know how deep it was out there, but despite the fact that my Grandfather had previously plowed the road with his antique WD45, he was unable to get his Dodge Spirit (a FWD car) out of his driveway. He also thought the same as you about 4WD, but if his F150 would have been 4WD, he would have been able to get out of there.

In short, if you don't have any traction in the first place, it doesn't matter how good a driver you are. When you're stuck, you are stuck.