Probably 5 years ago I was part of a 'focus' group that CASA wanted about Flight Safety Mag at one of those CASA pilot forums they put on.
The complete agreement of the focus group was to make it like the old crash comics, which towards the end as you know ended up being basically a BASI publication.
CASA basically said at the time it was BASI that withdrew from the publication and that they then started the flight safety mag in it's place, but it wasn't their place to do a 'crash' comic really because that was the ATSBs role not CASAs.
Just after they stopped the old BASI publication I called their office and asked for any back copies they had available, and they mailed out free of charge probably 40 of them back from years ago - I guess as others have noted times have changed and if you want to find it, all the data and more is on the ATSB website, but the problem is a lot of people just can't find it, or won't read it unless it's right infront of them.
I found some of the info in those old BASI mags fantastic - as the saying goes - 'learn from the mistakes of others because you won't live long enough to make them all yourself'.
As for the advertising, yup it's a pain but remember your dealing with cost recovery CASA, quite simply these days without the advertising the mag simply wouldn't exist because they wouldn't be able to justify the cost of it.
Also CASA was always keen to point out that the magazine is not just for pilots, it's also for engineers and flighties as well, whereas the BASI mag was basically just for pilots.