To be fair to Don Darby, when I heard him at a seminar (Aeros beginning of May) he mentioned the case of a highly experienced guy (57 I think) who could not hack a particular type conversion course, however he also said that he had recently recruited a 63 year old (presumabaly rated on type). He raised the example of the guy who could not hack it in order to show that it is possible that older people can fail courses. (This example was offered at a time when Don Darby was being badgered by one of us crumblies, which I thought was quite rude. Guy turns up in his own time to give seminar, gets heckled. hmmm.)
However this is completely different from low hours older candidates. Reading other threads it would appear FlyBe have recruited a few older modular guys just recently. I would have thought the situation is more complicated than it appears if a whole course is having problems.
Personally I think that the young people are not my competition, it is all the other people of a similar age / experience to myself who are the competition...