And....
...your use of the word 'adversary' sums it up nicely. It is not a matter of working together (CX and command trainees) to get a guy through his command. It is a matter of who wins the battle. It is an 'us and them' thing. So much for 'same team, same dream'!
And as for this comment:
"If you sit around picking your nose while hoping that someone will shake some holy water on you through the belief that you have some God-given right bestowed by seniority number, then you may be sadly disappointed. You have to personally demonstrate to the company that you are worthy of the responsibility and that they can trust you to carry out the duties that they require of you."
I have not flown with ANYONE that believes that the mere fact that their seniority number comes up means that they are entiled to a command. You need to give 99% of F/O's way more credit than that. It verges on the insulting!
A colleague recently commented to me (not a command failure) that the problem is that the training departrment demands perfection; not just excellence. There is a very subtle, but important, difference between the two. I challenge the training department to come up with anyone without any skeletons in their closet.
Flex - while your attempts to defend the training system are commendable (someone has to), I think even you would admit that the mere fact there is a huge difference between the pass rates on the Boeing and Airbus fleets indicates there are some issues. That's just the starting point.