I doubt if any TAWS could be engineered to a sufficiently high standard to provide the necessary protection to allow the aircrew to stop worrying about CFIT, as it were (I know you didn't claim that).
A question from someone with no experience in all of this....I fully grasp the difference between TAWS since it has found its way into Helicopters finally and have read up on Terrain Following Radar (ie. F-111 and other newer and better systems both US and UK).
As terrain following radar autopilot systems exist now....could not that be incorporated into latter Marks or Types at not a lot of additional expense?
The comments about lack of training and reduced flight hours due to budget cuts is very accurate as is the concern of general lack of experience in the new pilots arriving for operational duty with limited exposure to this type of flying.
Yet we all started out as newbies and managed not to weed ourselves out along the way.
Was it our skill and training or just plain old fashioned luck that prevented us from joining the ranks of the departed?