There is now no official age limit to CTC applications. It used to be 28 or something. There are plenty of people here over that age. If time is on your side, surely it makes a lot of sense to pursue education and a career of some sort that may or may not be related to aviation, and spend some of your hard earned on learning to fly for fun. That way, you get to work out whether you really enjoy flying, you earn cash you can save towards training (however you end up training), and you build up a big protective net to cover your backside should you need it in the future after taking the plunge.
As for CTC's future plans, it's pretty impossible to say how long the Wings scheme will be around. It's existed in some form since around '97 I believe (based on recall of meeting a former trainee who was involved in the recrutiment assessment process when I went through), but iCP cadets are coming through now and the whole thing could switch over one day. Or not.
If the rumours are true, it's so much cheaper to train in NZ who knows how long the programme will remain economically viable. Your sixty grand goes a long, long way in NZ and integrated guys (should) only do a handful of sims and flights in UK on DA42s before their AQC, so your bond really might cover a lot of of your CTC training. Add on top the interest on the debt capital provided by cadets as an income stream for the business, and, delays and unforeseen circumstances and what not considered, the programmes may not be that dependent on full cadet placement to hit black. There must be sizeable margins/contingency built in. Wings/iCP is not the company's main business anyway, and the company structure is such that the bits involved with them are separate companies and could probably be wound-up/jettisoned without sacrificing other operations.
Possibly one way of looking at it is this: if you sign up and two years after starting, you still haven't got a RHS, HSBC will be knocking at your door asking for at least £1100 a month repayment. More if you needed living costs and foundation. What's the average graduate wage take home these days? What's the average sub 25-year-old non-graduate take home? Either one of those gives little change out of £1100 if at all, after deductions. You could be working purely to service a debt, with nothing left to live on, which is effectively bankruptcy. Kiss goodbye to your credit line for seven years after declaring yourself financially bummed out.
The less you have to borrow, the better. Full stop. But then again, everything might be sthweeet athssss and you get a job straightaway and it all smells of roses. Who knows.