Well put Marooned.
Concerning this sad situation, greed and short term profit is certainly one of the main reasons, specifically on the owners and the lower accounting managements side. Looking at upper management levels, and this should be very important to realise for ek wannabees, there is unfortunately another reason which is the well developped hatred for pilots. The CEO can't stand us, therefore as long as this poor man is up there, we will i.e. never get the jump seat for us: THIS is a extremely serious deficit at EK. A little further down there is the VPO, a engineer without the slightest clue as to what our job consists of, with the universal envy of his breed of only beeing able to flick it's switches but never ever to fly the big bird itself. THIS reflects in the inhuman FDR's, as they are seen as eternal revenge for their graciously giving us the honorable oportunity to serve EK and its profit and leaving behind our own aspirations.