Max I get where you coming from and there is alot of truths is what you are saying but I think you need to a little further into what Graham Braithwaite is talking about in your text books.
The unfortunate truth that some people seem not to fatham is that you dont have to be old, have a wealth of experience after starting in tigermoths, be around since the Wright brother or have Grey hair to be a pilot. Porno mustaches and cockpit resource management went out with the dinosaurs and so did some of the ideas being thrown around this forum.
I am happy with the training I received.
Training by OSMOSIS... Works well in Qantas because their S/O Cadets have ZERO experience. There is only so much a person can learn, and the approach and landing phase requires a more tactile and practical approach.
The fact that companies have long since changed from spending everything necessary to save one life, to a risk hazard concept is a fact of modern aviation... and its not the pilots fault. Aviation is now a business involving trunk loads of money. The days of senior pilot running companies how "they think" it should be run is over and I just wish people would accept that.
You speak of culture, and please lets not kid ourselves. Yes there are a a few of us who arn't old grey guardian of aviation. We don't have the length and breadth of experience that there is in a legacy carrier. But funnily enough that culture has been in-ground since marxism, where the concepts of the culture you speak of had only been around really since the early 1990s. So which company will embody the essence of risk/hazard management. The legacy carrier with the old hats, or the penny pincher's of a modern low cost carrier.
Plainly MEL's are developed by the manufacturer, Pilots are the last line of defence, and an efficient, slender operation can be a safe one, ....... and no-one in J* are struggling to pay their bills.