A37575.
A37575 You will find that any professional qualification you complete, requires that you are able to learn and pass exams well beyond the knowledge required for the day to day duties. If one did a four year engineering degree you would do four years of advanced mathematics and physics most of which one would not use on a day to day basis, the same thing applies for other professions.
As far as aviation is concerned before the French invented the JAA, the British ATPL was considered the most recognized license and the license to have. Only the people who could not pass the license exams or did a watered down version of it eg. Malaysian, Hong Kong etc, complained of its irrelevance.
As far as I am concerned the Mercator chart should be removed but perhaps introduce the Polar Stereographic and to make it a bit more demanding the Transverse Mercator. A lot of Trans Polar flights are in operation so I am sure someone could justify it. This would remove the rote learning and only those who are mentally capable will hold an ATPL.