VeeAny,
I'd have liked to have taken a lot longer writing the following, so apologies if it's not as cogent as you'd like...
First, I'm sorry that I'm not going to be more specific about what I do, as it would certainly allow some folk to identify me, and whilst we're in a forum where it is acceptable to remain anonymous, I'd rather do so. However, you may rest assured that, whilst I'm not going to start listing qualifications etc, I'm in a job in which it's essential to know what I'm talking about. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here.
Secondly, to tackle your very valid question about 'hell in a handcart'...
This is happening much more slowly in aviation that it has in the marine world. The central problem is, funnily enough, that we've got a system that is too 'safe'. If you fly a western-built aircraft in Europe, and you meet someone's minimum standards, then you've gone 99% of the way to an accident-free operation - and going that last hundredth of the way could be very expensive indeed. The drive for economic growth, and the general belief that de-regulation provides a fertile market for optimising efficiency (in the economists' sense of the word - be careful if you don't know what I mean by that), combines with this former factor to produce the aviation world we see around us, at least, here in Europe. It's certainly at work behind the fact that it's very rare to see a UK-flagged merchant vessel in many places, when we used to rule the waves.
If you don't think this is happening, then, without banging on about these matters too much, I'll pick two quick examples of what I'm talking about. Both examples relate to the big plank world, as it's easier to talk about what's going on there, but the same thing is happening, much more slowly, in the world of the angry palm tree. Some people will like the first one quite a lot, others will find it hackneyed:
Years ago, people were selected for pilot training by airlines, on the grounds of their suitability as assessed by various means, and then paid a wage whilst they were trained as pilots. The training maximised knowledge and ability, and cost was a secondary factor, in the drive to improve a (then) unacceptable safety record. Now, the majority are selected by their ability and willingness to pay, and pilot training, instead of a business cost justified by the need for high quality crews, has become an income stream (market factors are significant here, too, but let's leave them to one side). To counter any 'quality' offset this produces, pilots operate in a more 'regulated' environment, do less 'flying', and make fewer decisions - which enables a lower minimum standard of competence in the flight deck. It also makes life for the most competent, rather boring.
Secondly, for decades, certain States, notably the UK, have imposed regulations more stringent than those imposed elsewhere. Of course, stringent regulation costs money, and offers advantage to otherwise-regulated operators. This is partly why one major UK airline has lots of aeroplanes based at UK airports with registrations beginning EI-. The whole industry is now operating against any endeavour to improve things on a 'local' (State) basis, as witness the Boeing operators who are currently moving to Boeing's own procedures, and thus doing away with decades of 'improvement' drawn out through, for example, the CAA's Flight Ops Inspectorate. They are getting rid of methods which have been improved upon time and time again, and replacing them with lowest common denominator methods, derived without the benefit of experience, often to enable operation on more than one type of aircraft - a practice which, only a few years ago, was deemed insufficiently safe for scheduled public transport operations with large aircraft, but is now in vogue, because... It costs less money.
Fundamentally, to see where I'm coming from, you need to understand the economics at work behind air safety. Hardly anyone involved in the business does.
Oh, and HillerBee, where was I being discriminatory? I originally asked a question which reflected the possibility that we were seeing the FAA-licensed folk here all ganging up together... Then when Whirls decided to, in the vernacular, 'big herself up' on the grounds of a PPL and a few commercial papers, I thought she was fair game for a bit of a reality check.