I haven't read the whole thread but
LASORS has no legal basis
is not quite the whole story.
Regardless of whether a particular statement in LASORS is legally correct or not: if you rely on something in LASORS and then break the
law, it is virtually impossible for the CAA to
successfully prosecute you.
This has been discussed in another thread here recently.
The way it works is that a member of the public has a reasonable expectation of getting the
correct information from a body like the CAA.
Even a letter from the CAA, containing completely incorrect information which you act on and then break the law, will make a prosecution impossible. This has been tested, too, because the CAA is not immune to having individuals inside it writing letters which are not authorised by the legal department and which somebody then relies on. I can think of one excellent example right away but won't post it publicly.
If you think about it, the law has to work this way, otherwise all correspondence (containing any advice or assurance whatsoever) emanating from any official body would be completely worthless.
It leads to the concept of "apparent authority" on which there is ample case law, and the current state AIUI is that pretty well anything appearing to come from an authoritative source inside the organisation
can be relied on.