Its always been the case L'aviateur well since I started looking at pprune.
Depending at which hoop you are asking questions about, the opinions go from utter bolocks to some sort of sense.
Generally the pre PPL\start of training are full of dreamers who think they know the score, unfortunatly they also think that all of the marketing spin they read on the web and in the flight mags is completley true. You get hundreds of these wannabies on here who get very upset when they either get ignored, shot down in flames or the piss ripped out of them for being gimps.
You will find another smaller group that actually make it through to theory stage. What happens to the dreamers I don't know either a crimminal record or adding to the number of single parent familys in the country makes them realise that it is not possible for them or they fail the class 1. Then bitch like hell because you can't get a JAR license with glasses that could be used in the hubble telescope.
After they have got through the ATPL exams the posters actually knowa bit about what they are talking about because they have been given a very small exposure to what the industry is like.
Then an even smaller group move on to the CPL\IR phase and then it comes down to hunting for jobs which PPrune is OK on the large companys but nobody lets on if there is a couple of FO jobs going in a turboprop outfit.
Unfortunatley the dreamers in the first stage can cost wannbie's who have the potential and the common sense to get to the end of training considerable amounts of money potentially stopping them becoming commercial pilots or costing them thier parents houses. I don't think they do it out of badness but occassionally someone has to set the record straight when the bull!!!!e meter gets into the red.