There's gratitude and then there's the desire to see a flawed system improved!
No one likes an ungrateful person, especially when it's at the expense of "some other buggers efforts" and I guess when you've been involved in making history I can see how some of these arguments to amend the current system might look.
But, the system isn't perfect and it could do with tweeking to try to make getting a civilian licence from military service a reflection of how one compares to the other, rather than an all or nothing approach as currently taken with the 2000+ hours required to be eligible for the bridging course. There will be many that won't have 2000+ hours by the end of their military service, especially when as is often the case there is no way of completing 10+ years of service post OCU - does that make these experienced pilots less worthy of being allowed to complete the bridging course because of a few hundred hours? Of course not so why isn't it sensible to alter the system.
Why not be awarded a CPL, frozen ATPL after OCU with a 5 year time bar? It wouldn't take much to insert a few more exams into the system to satisfy the CAA, or, is that all too difficult and lets be happy with the status quo!
...that said, a big thank you for those that have done so much to get where we are and to those that might take it even further!!!