Nick and Shawn- Not sure if it is SETP or the manufacturers to blame, but at least one company refuses to fund TPs involvement with SETP. Meanwhile, the same company funds engineers for SFTE and AHS membership and regular attendance at their conventions. Most of our TPs cannot get time off and can't afford to attend SETP on their own dimes.
Nick, I am not sure that all companies' managment see a difference between TPs- they seem to be looking purely at budget sometimes, and are more than willing to send development work away from the company and to the military or even to use non-TPs.
I would think that there may be many other test pilots lurking around, but they are all more than willing to let Nick, Rich, and Shawn handle all the work. (Rumor has it that they are all so old, they need to spend their time typing to stay awake......)