aa777888 - grass is a perfectly safe surface for EOLs
I guess you and I will disagree, then. I'll stick with the recommendations of my instructors and the likes of Tim Tucker, Shawn Coyle, and others. It's a clearly divisive issue though, as this topic shows with ample numbers of posters coming down (hah, a pun!) on both sides of the question.
Sounds like people are struggling to me. If the accident ratio was as high as you suggest - where does the fault lie? Is it the unsuitability of the aircraft for the task, the ability of instructors and examiners to monitor and correct student errors, or a combination of both? Either way the teaching and standards are being diluted.
I think it's important to put a finer point on it than that. What I wrote was
"recently the full-down became optional on the CFI check-ride because too many FAA DPEs were not current enough in Robinsons to save a CFI check-ride candidate's bacon, and their own". The only person struggling in this context is the DPE, not the student or their instructors. I suppose that DPEs, by their very nature being highly accomplished aviators and educators, probably spend most of their non-DPE time in more sophisticated machinery than an R22 or an R44. The DPE can require the student to perform a full-down if they like. I suspect that most who are recent in Robinson equipment do, in fact, go that route. But with helicopter DPEs being in somewhat short supply, this was the FAA's solution to a safety issue vs. DPE availability issue, and the CFI candidate in question MUST show up fully qualified in full downs with an instructor endorsement to that effect.