notice does seem to be grinding a bit of an axe, I would say from his posts he went to the WRONG flying school.
Personally I think we have missed a great opportunity with the NPPL, as it is it really only benifits those who can't get the class2 medical and as it stands we might as well have left the PPL as it was and said those who can't get a class2 can have a licence issued as a National licence but not JAR. The REAL hours to do a licence could have been brought down by having the privelages restricted, yes, lowering the standard, but you would then let someone fly with pax., supervised by an instructor within a set range of the airfield, thereby reducing the nav and IF instructing to a bare minimum, this after all is all a lot of PPLs do initially and when most instructors send a student solo into the local area they believe they are doing this safely - what is the difference if after a few more hours and a test they do this with pax. You could then have an upgrade course to extend your privaleges.