One thing that strikes me, as mere SLF...
...and with reference to Capt. Sullenberger's lament about the state of the piloting profession in the US, is that the two pilots at the sharp end of Flight 1549 were both hugely experienced people possibly at the chronological tail end of their careers. Ditto the cabin crew, I notice, probably (I speculate) for very similar reasons. Most people seem to regard this as a good thing, and for everybody else on board 1549 it obviously had no downside at all, but more holistically I wonder....
Clearly it was a bit of a result that Capt. Sullenberger was there to do the driving, but in ten years time he won't be. The co-pilot was another hugely experienced bloke, in fact more experienced than Capt. Sullenberger, with plenty of command experience of his own. Surely in a perfect world, you'd have a Captain Sullenberger on the flight deck, with somebody along side him of more tender years and with less experience learning his trade from one of the best. If this incident had happened in ten or fifteen years time, that's the guy who you'd (well, I'd) want to be taking over the driving when the excrement hit the air-conditioner. One wonders who, in fifteen years time, will be flying US domestic planes. Presumably not people who have had fifteen years and thousands of hours flying alongside people like Capt. Sullenberger or his co-pilot...