Minge Coiffeur
Sorry to display yet another holier than thou attitude, dear chap. You said:
Meanwhile, back in the real world, most crews in most airlines use discretion on a regular basis to keep the program running, within the usual guidelines.
And there you have it in your very own words. To use discretion "on a regular basis" for whatever reason is utterly unprofessional and, believe it or not, unsafe as well as potentially unlawful.
When you imply that the primary reason it is allegedly so used is for no more pressing a reason than that it is to avoid subsequent roster changes suggests that either your ops/crew scheduling staff know you well enough to rely on this reason as a coercive tool and/or you are so without comprehension of the spirit and purpose of CAP371 requirements that you should be suspended from flying duty for as long as it takes you to have that spirit and purpose permanently fixed in your mind.
Which is it?
