Actually what I was saying was that the majority of the of the minimal hours instructors were barely fit to fly solo.
And that's the bit I disagreed with and thought was controversial!
Your other stuff I do agree with. The structural "problem" (if there is a problem) with PPL flight training is exactly as you describe it. The presence of a large cadre of low time instructors willing to work for unsustainably low wages has the effect of
- crowding out career PPL instructors, except those who are senior enough to make more from examining, being CFIs etc
but the benefit of
- making flight training cheaper than it would be otherwise.
I am not sure that standards suffer from a "majority" of low timers being unfit. From my experience, they are a pretty good bunch; but that is a small sample.
The problem in the UK is that no-one has managed to run a school which breaks out of the low price model that prevails. In the US, many schools have career instructors; either full timers or part-timers alongside the hours builders; my sense is that FI there get $40 or so per hour after the school takes its cut - and that this rate is charged for ground briefing as well as flight. I think this helps make the balance of flight vs ground training time better. Also, many schools have reasonably modern training aircraft (C172s with G1000, DA40s) so students have the choice between older and newer aircraft. But, in the UK it feels like the student population won't pay for the extra cost of more experienced instructors, more ground briefing, newer airplanes or post-ppl continuation training. It's a difficult dilemma, and I don't know the answer.
rgds
421C