You're Right!!!
Parabellum is totally correct!!!! And, today, that's still the intent of the MEL system.
By the way, for those of you neophytes in aviation, the MEL system changed to what it is today as a result of a fellow named Frank Lorenzo and an airline called Eastern Airlines. (If you remember, their slogan was, "Eastern Airlines...The Wings of Man." But, the reality was, "Eastern Airlines...The Hemorrhoids of Man.")
Way back in the early eighties, gross abuse of the MEL system (as written then) was rampant at Eastern. Everyone in business, including the anti-union U.S. government administration, blamed a guy named Charlie Bryant (Eastern's IAM union chairman) for being a militant union man....claiming that, really, all is well and compliant, and that Charlie was simply trying to fight management in his insistence on compliance with federal aviation laws.
In the end, the result was drastic changes in the MEL system (to put more teeth in to it) and the incarceration of middle-management, maintenance department personnel in the Atlanta federal prison.
To this day, Mr. Lorenzo remains at large!
PantLoad