Good examples. I had an experience a bit like the first one at Whistler. It was getting to be a bit of a whiteout up top, with flat light down below. I got out of the whiteout onto the groomed, thinking I was just going down a smooth straight hill. But all of the sudden my skis are coming up - there was maybe a 4 or 5 foot roller I didn't even see.
Theoretically, if the light is flat enough (i.e. scattered and perfectly even in every direction from every angle - no shadows at all), your goggles don't matter, because there's nothing for them to do with the light to differentiate the terrain. Usually things aren't quite that flat, but sometimes it's not your goggles that suck - it's just physics.