ChrisN,
No flames please, my questions are seriously meant, even if apparently stupid to some.
Although a bit off the core topic of this thread, I donīt find your questions stupid at all.
Most of your questions touch one of the major aspects of my current work. "Why wonīt..?", "Why does not...?" etc., all these whys have a lot to do with the way a given society, or a system of experts for that matter, translates potential dangers into risk. Now note: there is a difference between danger and risk. The concept is as follows: Only when a given danger is "decoded" or "deciphered" into risk, it can be calculated, handled, coped with, avoided, etc. The culture of this "risk translation" is, therefore, crucial to avoid or cope with dangers/hazards in the first place. Disaster will occur when this translation or decoding process goes wrong, or does not take place. So much for the theory.
Now you are argueing that "short term profits are thought better than long term lawsuits". You might be right, but the main problem is: it ainīt so simple. In order to have a successful danger-risk-translation, you need "transmitters" = people or institutions powerful enough to
a) notice a potential hazard
b) initiate danger-risk-translation
c) thereby find a code that is
....... i) understood
....... ii) accepted by a given society or expert system
d) enforce adequate danger-avoiding measures which are based on that translation process.
Who and where are these institutions, and are they powerful enough? Rhetorical question!
(However, in the aviation sector (I donīt want to use the fashionable term "industry") and its expert system it is at least reassuring to know that some of the worldīs most efficient danger-avoiding-systems are in place.)
Itīs interesting that the general danger-risk-concept can also be applied to what apparently happened in the cockpit of that ill-fated flight. Danger-risk decoding went wrong, and no powerful tool/institution/process/procedure was available in time to alter the outcome.
All, please excuse this long post and its rather general contents. Thought that discussing that concept might stimulate some new ideas...