My thoughts on this - having read several such threads - are that there is an increasing polarisation in GA.
On the one hand are those who wish to use aviation primarily (not necessarily exclusively) for pleasure, and on the other are those who primarily use it as a means of transport.
Neither group is right or wrong, neither is better or worse than the other.
However, as the polarisation becomes more pronounced, the demand for "General Purpose" aviation is diminished.
The effect of this is likely to be that many general purpose airfields - particularly those with paved runways and / or imperilled by development - will become economically unviable, principally because "sport aviation" - e.g. microlighting, farm-strip flying etc. - really doesn't contribute much towards these airfields. So more people are pushed out of or away from aviation - whether it's because it's now too far to the nearest airfield, or there's no FTC any more, or any maintenance facility etc.
That then means that "transport" GA is forced, more and more, to use the larger "commercial" airfields, thus further increasing the costs and possibly driving more people away from GA.
I'm not trying to argue that farm-strip flyers should subsidise the ILS at such-and-such an airfield - I'm simply saying that unless more people use GA as a means of transport then it will soon become a sad reality that it will no longer be possible to do so - for anyone.
And I think that the only way that that can be done is to have better equipped aircraft and pilots appropriately trained to use the equipment effectively to fly safely from A to B in the UK's (over?)-regulated airspace and weather conditions.
And if the quality of the equipment (and the pilots using it) were to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th Century, then maybe (just maybe) the rules governing the use of the airspace could be similarly updated.
But if the only form of GA available is PFA & farm-strip flying, its voice will be seriously diminished, and its ability to influence the wider aviation scene commensurately reduced.
NPPL anyone?
SD