"I think that the right for people to NOT carry transponders / radios / whatever should be preserved if they really want."
Ok, Englishal, so how about the rights of the people that they kill in the midair who were in an aircraft that was transponding with TCAS etc... is it fair for their level of risk to be controlled by the bloke who has built a plane in his garage and wants to just bimble around not talking or squawking to anybody?
TCAS repeatedly helps me avoid low level VFR traffic who generally remain oblivious to the fact that we have got a little closer than comfortable and that I have had to take avoiding action. Last time it saved my bacon was on Monday on the approach to Lausanne, Switzerland, a VFR airport on the end of an IFR flightplan. I had just cancelled IFR with Geneva when we had a near miss - low level VFR, same level, reciprocal heading. We came very close, he never saw me and I doubt I would have seen him in time had the "traffic" not began chiming. Could have been Coventry all over again.
Although I completely agree that see and avoid is the best policy, TCAS can seriously open your eyes to the real risks out there that you miss 75% of the time when you are relying on the mark 1 eyeball alone. It should be seen as visual scan amplification and absolutely does not encourage complacency.
As far as I am concerned if people want to jump off a cliff then that's absolutely fine with me, so long as they don't take me and my family out with them.
SB