As has been said, arguments for and against, as there were for CVRs, which are now almost universally accepted as being as important as the FDR.
Can't see that a manually erasable recorder is a good idea. Presumably after someone makes a horlicks he'll 'accidentally' manually erase the record.
I feel that the current NTSB policy of making entire transcripts available (minus the expletives, bizarrely) is a bad one. The contents of the CVR should remain private and available to only those who need it for investigative purposes, with only relevant excerpts being referred to if necessary in the accident report.
Right, I'll get down off the high horse now
