No not crazy at all. In fact if I owned a company and could convince the authorities to let me have inexperienced pilots in the right hand seat who will not only pay my company for being permitted to operate there, but also to agree to work for nothing for the following year and a half, I would jump at the chance. Could this be extended to Captains as well, so that you get promoted upon payment of an additional fee for the command course, and then pay for the command line training, and agree to operate in the left seat for 2 years for nothing?
With such a massive reduction in costs we could cut our fares and completely undercut the market. The passengers pay less, the pilots pay more. I wonder if the cabin crew and engineers would be tempted by a similar offer?
Vanity publishing has nothing on this. Provided nothing goes wrong and the passengers are blissfully unaware, I can't see the problem at all.
In all honesty I would go for it!