Fair point Alex, well presented. However I was not suggesting that the FAA system is nothing more than learning a list of questions (or if I implied it I didn't mean to), but it is surely easier to get near 100% on questions you have seen before.
As for the oral, I have never taken one but unless your examiner is a special kind of b@stard he/she would surely try and get the correct answer from you by rephrasing the question if possible etc. It takes a hard man/woman to ask a difficult question and simply sit and watch you sweat in silence. You will still have to know the subject though but I am sure there are less 74% failures due to non-sensical questions which are badly worded and are impossible to answer even if you know the answer, yet are still consisered "Safe" by auntie CAA.
Having said that, after getting through the JAA papers I am glad that I could reduce my sweating before the IR simply to my flying and not a huge amount of tech etc which I braindumped the night after I sat the exams (and am now re-learning months later in prep for any interviews which may come my way - although that airline Capt position working in Maccy D's adverts is looking more like an option).