bubbers44;
All of us know how to fly a 727. A few know the laws of A320 automation.
I agree with you. Flew it, loved it, bread-and-butter airplane as honest as the DC8.
Trouble is, (and I posted at length on this elsewhere), de-regulation came along and the flying public were promised cheaper fares. The only way to do that was to build artificiality into an aviation system and industry, partially actually doing it cheaper and partially creating the illusion that it could be done cheaper. For cost-cutting, employees were low-hanging fruit.
Two pilots, not three or four (Nav's on overseas), huge weight savings, (the fbw B787 is the most dramatic yet), computerzation in every known corner increases accuracy, data-management and reduces staff...
Technology has rendered mechanical, navigational, weather, ergonomic, ATC-related and terrain-related accidents all but obsolete. Today it is human error that is the chief cause of aircraft incidents and accidents. That factor is stubbornly flatlined on the descending graph kept since the mid-60's and is about to begin climbing again as the promise of cheap aviation meets the aviation's natural barriers and constraints.
This brings us home to the fact that you can't sustain a "viable" aviation industry based upon B727 or DC8 numbers. Everyone from CEO, through flight operations through the bean-counters is asking of the manufacturers and crews, "what have you done for us lately?" and at presently very fine-tuned levels, there isn't much left to cut off the bone.
I think we both know that it's as plain as that.