Interesting paper; now more than ten years old. It's most recent and vivid accidents being Colgan Air and the Hudson River ditching. I would hazard a guess and say that the same people interviewed today would have an even more pessimistic view of the industry.
The problem with increased mechanical reliability, more advanced automation and lowering of T&Cs is that the job doesn't need sharp people anymore. However when things go wrong; those same people are quite clearly out of their depth - this incident and the French Bee A350 and now perhaps the Spicejet in 'turbulence". How is the regulator supposed to get ahead of these 'black swan' events that are by their nature unpredictable and infrequent?
It's simple; the cost to do something about it is is higher than having a hull loss every x million passenger miles. If that relationship reverses; expect something will get done.