This was always inevitable, just a question of timing. Pilots might not like it and will try to resist it, however it will happen, like it or not.
At the end of the day, pilots do carry the can for their actions, always have done. Data and voice recorders already exist, this is just going to provide supplementary info over and above what is already there. A distraction to the pilot? I think not. When used in the sim, my experience was that you forgot about it completly and got on with the job in-hand, even if it was subsequently embarrasing in the debrief.
Think positively; maybe, it might just prove one day that the pilots, in a particular situation, did carry out the right actions and that the fault lay with the malfunction of the airplane systems. The way it is at the moment, in the absence of hard evidence that the sytem malfunctioned, the pilot must therefore be to blame. If the pilot screwed up, well, he's probably gonna get blamed anyway, this will just go to help prove the fact. If he did, he has to face the music like in any other walk of life.
Hard, but fair.