Good post truckiebloke, you have exposed some of the attitudes that have stood in the way in the past and will continue to do so in the future. We've all heard the comments:
"we always do it that way on......."
"You should thank yourself lucky, when I was on xxxxxx, we never even had........."
and then there are the :
"if you couldn't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined up"
"that's life in the old blue suit" type of comments.
They are the attitudes borne by people who don't seem to want to see things improve, or would happily have everything reduced to the lowest common denominator, rather than striving to achieve higher standards. If conditions through absolute necessity are bad, then we should put up with them, but where it is possible to improve the situation, then surely we should do everything possible to do so, particulalry if flight safety is an issue. When I next climb aboard as a passenger, I sincerely hope that the crew (air and ground) are sufficiently rested and in the best frame of mind to do the job.
Safety_Helmut