Eermm... If I may...
Having a LAME performing flight duties (at least some) would improve money saving on the company side. Why? He would deal with the equipments onboard knowing what could go wrong with the systems, components... And all of that would last longer, for sure.
As to being a greasy engineer, to be able to replace the brakes, he would have had training both teorhetical and practical, along with more than 2 years training just for basics, not counting Type rating.
In fact, it is very difficult to find a professional who's training is to be so long and intensive, apart maybe for pilots, and I really doubt cabin training to be as extensive. Therefore, you need to study so much more than if you were to be cabin crew, but that doesn't necessarily makes one better than the other. Forgive me for being so upfront.