IO540,
While some of your ideas are good, one thing you seem to forget is that people are different, and that applies to pilots too. I'd far rather spend my £8000 on half a Luscombe or Jodel, than a tenth of some fancy touring aircraft. I don't want to be in a group of ten; I want availability when I want it, and I like old aircraft. I have a GPS and don't use it, because I keep forgetting how to, and I find map and compass nav easy and fun. And I happen to know I'm not unique. And of the non-pilot friends I take flying, there are as many who are like me as like you.
There's lots we can do as individuals. I have resolved that next time I go to the airfield to fly alone, I'll try very hard to find someone there who'd like to go with me. And I'll talk to the students and non-pilots who are around, and the families who've dropped in for coffee and to look at aircraft.
I KNOW that sort of thing works. Very soon after I started instructing, the school I worked for realised that a disproportionate number of my trial lessons were coming back for more? Why? I'm not the world's best pilot, or greatest instructor. But what I can do is pass on my own enthusiasm, and explain to people that:
a) They CAN do it
b) It's not all that expensive; look at how much you'll be putting in per week, not what it'll cost overall - a coffee a day costs huge amounts over a year, if you look at it that way.
c) They CAN pass exams, even if they're old or young or non-technical or whatever.
d) It IS worth it.
I didn't need my FI training to be able to do any of that. All I needed was enthusiasm for flying and an interest in people. Everybody reading this thread has those, or they wouldn't be reading this.
The schools aren't great, the costs are horrible, the rules and regulations are ridiculous - we know all that, and we can't change it, or not easily. But people get turned on to flying by other people. So there is actually quite a lot we can do.
And next time we have a Private Flying fly-in, and we have at least a couple every year, see who you can bring with you. Explain everthing to your passengers, give them the map, tell them what you're doing, and show them that you're human, not the great infallible super-pilot. So that they know that they could do it too.
Big oaks from little acorns grow, and ripples spread outwards, and all that kind of stuff.