I personally have no issue with carriage of transponders or non carriage
My problem is that at the moment if you don't have a transponder there are alot of aircraft out there that have no protection. We can all say that we operate see and be seen. And we can also all say that we have almost been hit by some numpty that either didn't give way when he should have or he just didn't see us.
What you have to convince their majesties in the ivory towers is that if you don't have transponders, be they mode "C" or Mode "S", you won't get in to CAS when you are not supposed to be there
if you can do that, then you wont need a transponder.
BUT I don't think the EASYJET or RYANAIR pilots will accept that you dont need a transponder when a microlight goes in to CAS with no transponder and gets very close to them.