SAS methinks you're getting my comments mixed up with rotorbrent's. You'll never hear disparaging remarks from me regarding ex-PHI aircraft. I flew one myself at a previous company.
You're quite right in pointing out that safety equipment (or lack thereof) is primarily driven by the customer. If they start asking for exposure suits for those long deepwater flights we do nowadays in the GOM then I'm sure exposure suits will be all the fashion down here in no time.
Perception may be the truth but the truth will set you free... (I have no idea what I mean by that). Ask yourself (or better yet ask all of your PHI friends) why they continued to work for so long (decades in the case of your sample PHI pilot) for a company that by their account shortchanges them in the safety department and would threaten to fire them for speaking out. Are they masochists? Curmudgeons?