Okay -
some of the ground crew are engineers, I would be surprised if the majority were not technicians. Some of the air engineers might well be airborne systems monitoring personnel, some will be engineers - and I doubt any of the former are indifferent to becoming part of the latter. (I'm not an engineer, nor an ex-engineer, but I haven't specifically forbidden my daughter to marry one - although the uglier ones should of course be avoided to prevent undue regression at the attractiveness level. Pilots are another matter).
I doubt Beagle intended offence...he was closer to actuality than the first definition....
All I recall of MR2 conversion on the SCP is a brief mention that it provided extra cooling for all this new kit - that was probably the Janet and John version for the back end lot. I was i/c teapots on alternate tuesdays at the time. I never had a scoobies that this was actually a potential ignition source, was ANYONE briefed during MR1 to MR2 conversion that this addition would probably work best without inflammable materials/liquids in close proximity? I'm completely unaware of any suggestion 20+ years ago that this wouldn't be used in flight - my impression is that this is simply an assumption made by BAe, one they had no reason to make.
Ultimately that would then, in my opinion, make them responsible for the inability, at least, for anyone at Sqn level to join the dots and question the safety of the AAR system when that got plumbed in. Anyone who has seen a few AAR evolutions has probably seen fuel blowing all over the shop - it's only dangerous if you have an ignition source. Neither I, not those I flew with - to my knowledge - were aware of the ignition source being introduced with the MR2.
Dave
(This is also why I believe, TD, that the blame doesn't lie with current or past aircrew - you can only base your decisions on what you've been told and the documentation for the aircraft. It is those who DID have the information, but failed to pass it on or correctly interpret it, that I believe accountable).