I understand. That's why I wrote "reasonable performance" in quotes and mentioned the license issue for short.
I agree that, in general terms and in the west, training is already at a level where I don't think much more can be asked for. It never hurts to have more, but I don't think we can blame pilots for not having more or the industry for not providing more.
You said it yourself that you need to prepare and study for frequent tests and training sessions throughout your career even if you are good in your job.
Management can improve, I think that's true. I think that better scheduling, extra crews, less pressure, etc, are all good things for safety, but I also think that it has little to do with accidents like THIS PARTICULAR one, where a well trained, rested and not-particularly-rushed crew makes a very basic human mistake coupled with a too hard to diagnose failure to conclude in tragedy.
I think this particular type of accidents are the ones that can receive most benefits from better technology, rather than rely on better human knowledge (that comes from increased training, of course).
Or un-human pilots that just can not forget the simple task to set and verify the flaps no matter if it rains or hails. In that case, we don't need more training, or better SOPs, or better engineers, or better management, or more maintenance, or better work conditions, or better training departments, or even TOWS at all. We would simply need pilots that know how to lower the flaps (and the other couple of killer items) and ALWAYS make triple sure, for their own lifes, that they are set.
And who is willing to pay for this superior knowledge?
You are? Otherwise, you can die in an accident or, if you are a ground engineer (or a surgeon, or an arquitect), you could be put in prison for a long time for "provoking" one. If you think your work conditions and your knowledge are not good for your (or others) safety, you are suppossed to quit and do a different type of job, and NOT continue and put people in danger (including yourself). If the conditions are good but it's only training you lack to do your job properly, find the training quick and then it's all good. Or, again, just quit.
If the knowledge is there, fine, it saves the day. If it's not, I don't think it can be reasonably expected that all engineers make the RAT/TOWS connection inmediately or that all pilots should recognize the condition, besides it not helping at all in cases like MAP or in theoretical cases where the TOWS fail right before take off and right before anybody notices anything with the RAT or otherwise.
The guy writing the MEL and the SOP, on the other side, I do think that he should've made a better effort ... And I, personally, would've expected better from the maintenance technicians, but I do not blame them excessively for not taking the time to investigate the matters more througoughly.
I've already stated that my opinion, given the impossibility to trust the pilots to NEVER EVER EVER forget the killer items, is to improve the reliability of the warning systems by requiring more frequent tests by the crew, improving the design and improving the maintenance manuals to help recognize failures. That would help to assure that a warning is heard if there is a configuration mistake for whatever reason during takeoff. Any well trained crew would know what to do in that case.
A bad crew would just ignore it, but I don't think that anything can be done in that case except trying to find crews that have enough regard for their lifes to not forget flaps and not ignore warning alarms early during a "simple" takeoff.