just to pick up on one of arcniz's points:
The extent to which the flying crew can also be maintenance technicians is controlled by the quality and fitness-to-task of the tools available and also by the mindset of the individuals.
Is technology leading us down a road of ignorance and blind faith in the software we all use day after day? It is not that long ago that even the most advanced machines in the world were controlled by levers and pullies. The average human being was brought up with a reasonable understanding of how things worked (pull this and that goes up technology). A large number of people (particularly men) took pride in the fact that they knew how the internal combustion engine worked and could strip and re-assemble one. A lot of this knowledge has been lost due to the fact that the car engine is no longer 'user maintenance friendly'. Who would consider changing their own brake pads these days? Not only are we becoming a service industry driven world, we are developing a service industry mentality, i.e. if it breaks buy a new one or get someone else to fix it. The days of people being able to fix things themselves would appear to be disappearing into history.
Whilst I would not question the piloting competancy of the crew, one wonders how knowledgeable they (and indeed many younger pilots) are of how and why the mechanics of their chariot function and interact.