When you are flying with big distances between airports (such as the the Canadian 'outback', or more familiar to me Australian outback, or remote islands in vast oceans) and arriving with minimum reserves, having those reserves in one tank makes sense. I've ran tanks dry on many aircraft, many times. It gives you confidence in the sums, or these days the fuel flow gage and digital readout.
Re this failure, what luck! Your next move should have been to the 'lotto' office and buy a ticket in the big draw.
By the looks of the pic the skies were clear?
I haven't had much to do with the Ram Air system on the Mooney. It seems self explanatory. But a friend told me story where he was over hills in the dark and the engine started loosing power. He descended into warmer air and it improved. His theory was although the Ram Air was not being used, the butterfly valve at the front was leaking air. Moist air that was freezing in the throttle body.
If that be the case wouldn't that happen anytime the Ram Air was used, below the freezing level, and in moist air?
I'm in the camp that the leaking fuel is a red herring also. A bit of ice in the system, fuel pump on and the burning process moves out of the possible burning stoichiometric ratio.
Just a stab in the dark guess.