Everyone who managed anything through the transition into 61, will tell you it was disgusting.
Implementation was delayed several times because "the industry" (meaning CASA) wasn't ready. There was no final version until after it went live (yes, the "live" version was a draft). When it went live, the regulations were full of errors and typos - I was told several times regarding 61 "that bit is wrong, just keep doing what you did before". And the supposed reason for going 61 was to drop exemptions (so everyone would be the same - good) but the number of exemptions has increased.
So we went from 50 pages with some serious flaws in how things were evaluated, to 61 of being 250 pages of regs + 650 pages of MOS + some of the old regulations, and it still have obvious flaws and drafting errors ... the most of the flaws in how things were evaluated are still there!!
Does that explain things?
The FAA stuff has the advantage of being more stable, but plenty of people seriously suggested we use the NZ regs, which are clear, readable, and cover/permit almost exactly the same as where we're going to end up when all the new Oz licencing is done.