For those who know the people at Bini, I think you'll find that they see themselves as the other end of the curve, that is, highly differentiated, providing a personalised training, and focusing on quality and standards, and certainly not on volume. They seem to have no ambition to become a larger school which I truly respect. At the other end you have Soar (and metoos), big on marketing with shiny instagram accounts and websites, high volumes but obviously poor on quality and standards. I don't want to be too broad brush here, but all the other MB operators I had dealings with were some kind of trade off between the two, or stuck in the middle.
With regard to ab initio kids doing their homework, the least you would expect someone to do is hit up "Flying schools Melbourne/Sydney/..." or some kind of similar keywords on Google. Here's perhaps where experienced pilots/recent graduates/current students with a view to improve/give back to training could do something. I don't think that it would take much more than a nicely designed web page with no affiliation (and certainly not to flight training operators) that provides a clear picture of the current flying training environment in Australia. This would include the structure of training, advantages/drawbacks of the integrated vs. nonintegrated curricula, common pitfalls, words on the type of aircraft, things to consider once training started (school organisation, sticking to schedules, ...), etc. In addition to providing an utterly clear and impartial message (i.e. no bashing of RA aircraft, just an objective statement what things are), this web page could also have an "endorsement" where real pilots just add their name to a statement such as "
My name is XXX, and this is what I would like to have known when I started my training" and those who want could volunteer some of their time to answer questions. There would also be a chapter on how to deal on a personal level with difficult instructors. I found it common to find students feeling "stuck" with an instructor they dislike for fear of speaking up when they forget that they really are the client and, as such, should feel free (if not entitled) to request to train with someone else.
The page could be maintained by donations in an effort to depart from a money making standard unfortunately pervasive nowadays. It would be a free resource with no strings attached. I don't think it would take much beyond some of you willing to spend a bit of time reviewing the content. Any ab initio would certainly find it worth $10 of their budget and pitch in at one point or the other.
One free resource that I found particularly refreshing and useful while doing my IR was this one:
https://weflyplanes.com.au/
I don't think that flight training needs to be such a painful experience in Australia. That luck plays such an overinflated part in something that is so expensive really doesn't make sense to me.