Well said Chris, although I don't entirely agree with your representation of my own position.
I believe in regulatory monitoring, as hands-off as possible, but with enough teeth to stop something flying if it's plainly dangerous. For this happens two things are needed - firstly the regulator (who so far as possibly I think in GA should be an association, not the national authority) must have a mechanism in place allowing them to know what's going on, secondly the regulator (ditto) must pull it's finger out and work at making any regulatory oversight as easy to live with as possible. I understand the American approach of "let me do what I want and don't interfere" if the alternative is constant mucking about with the FAA, but in my opinion this is still the wrong answer; the right answer would be the FAA getting it's act into gear and being as easy to live with as possible.
The other point that's been made is about CAA (or no doubt other authorities) making it difficult to approve foreign mods. Well if it's true, it's unacceptable and the fault lies with the authority. However, whilst I don't work for the CAA, I have had sight of one or two of these. There was a well known case of a motorglider silencer that CAA blocked approval of despite approval in German (who know far more about motorgliders than the brits ever will). From a private conversation with the chap at the CAA involved I understand that what happened was that CAA said it would be glad to approve it but would just like drawings and a manual so that they knew what they were dealing with. No manual appear, neither did CAA approval. Who is really at fault here?
G