At the risk of being jumped on by every polarised view.....
I work in the industry for an global operator presently based overseas and travel very regularly mainly via LHR and T5. On my last trip I filed a complaint with BA due to the processing of some VIPs?? and what I took to be a BA short haul crew. It was about 8am and large queues at the security checks, the queue was held to let some perceived VIP into line ahead who were by no means ready for security and held the line for a while. The crew who were also in line had far more than normal handbaggage to get through the 'xray' scanners, and then several crew were rejected passsing through the 'arch' for metallic objects or shoe checks. All the pax that day were held, some who were short on time, to cater firstly for VIPs to jump the queue (who I later saw in the lounge) and then for staff who probably pass security more than most not complying with the rules.
The airside rules are clearly defined and we are all expected to comply with them. Those of us that travel regularly should be able to cope with them without any particular effort. As a note, also in the queue that morning was a BA Engineer going airside to satellite B. He managed to move through in good time following the rules including subjecting his inspection equipement to scrutiny in the same manner as everyone else.
Personally I do not find the present rules user friendly, but they are in force and if we wish to work we have to abide by them, it is/should be the same for everyone. Local variations are hard to understand apart from possibly covering temporary failure of equipment. Just avoiding the checks by routing through hubs with less scrutiny is not possibly comparing eggs with eggs when the whole service and/or safety case are taken into account.