1 to Go, Grd Chk Satis and Recceguy are 100% right and should form up the new 'Board of Control' for such flight activity!
S/Bus03, I have to disagree with you, the conventional flying (non FBW)Boeing 'test' flight is necessary. There are many occasions where, If I was the recipient customer, I would have wanted some guarantees from the leasing Co or at the very least rectification of fault before accepting the airplane.
If YOU were paying for a second hand Boeing/Airbus (et al) ~$300,000/month, and had to return that airplane back to the lessor 8 years later in the same condition as originally accepted, then, I'm sure you would want to crawl all over the machine looking for everything from; tired engines, APU's, sloppy flight controls, poor (or even illegal) lapjoint work etc etc... I've seen all of the above. The airline handing back the a/c, will do as little as possible in terms of maintenance, and the airline accepting, if they're any good, will look very very closely at the machine they are about to lease.
Recceguy, whilst I agree with you, I think the best solution that doesn't cost an airline 1.5 years and lots of money at SETP school, is for the manufacturer to provide a course for TRI/E's to educate them to conduct these flights. Without such education, safety is compromised, quality of the test is compromised, which cost leasing companies lots of money 'fixing' faults that were misdiagnosed by an 'inexperienced' TRE in the first place.
Grd Chk Satis, one of the scariest jobs I've done is the 'observer' job, sitting in the jumpseat watching poor crews make a hash of the test. It is certainly a job I don't think is worth the money!