John, I see what you're saying, and agree that times just seemed to be different back then - But don't forget, there was an accident during that time, where a 212 flew into the water when the viz came down. Regulations just weren't that important, and the rule book was written as we went along.
Now safety is paramount, we are 'Public Air Transport' and that in turn denotes a certain high standard. It isn't a question of whether we can improve the training, there just aren't enough night decks available for crews to be current enough to be safe and it isn't like the shuttling on the Brent where, as you say, you could do hundreds of night deck landings in a 2 week period.
The questions are, is it safe enough to fly at night, and secondly, do we actually need to take those risks, or can the passenger transports be accomplished in a safer manner - ie. during daylight hours.