A & C, I quite agree!
I have been instructing since the mid 1970s and the "nuts and bolts" of teaching people to fly have not, in my opinion, changed a deal since then but what has changed is the ever increasing amount of bureacratic nonsense which we have to put up with which does little to enhance common sense, safety and plain old "airmanship"! My hallucination is that matters have only got worse since we have gone over to the European Rules etc!!
I am all for doing things the right way and believe that instructors should lead by setting a good standard but some of our brethren seem to revel in all this stuff. I am aware of at least one examiner (ex CFS!) who has packed in examining due to all the red tape.
A classic example to me is the "recommendation" that students have to pass Air Law before going solo. Most schools and clubs seem to interpret this as a mandatory requirement. And yet it is almost impossible to teach EFATO (due to the CAA interpretation of Rule 5 etc) legally. Would you rather your first solo understood the Chicago Convention or the Quadrantal Rule or be able to proficiently deal with an EFATO?