You must be wearing your rose coloured glasses Flying-Spike, or you moved to the dark side?
CASA/CAA/DOT/DCA has always been a closed shop jobs for mates.
I came a number individual's that basically came out of the RAF/RAAF/RN/RAN/Army and straight into a job as a FOI's, probably in reality there GA time was done when converting their licences etc and a few couldn't pass the Australian SCPL/ATPL so they went and did FAA ATPL.