Mary
If only the military pilots ethic could be transmitted to the GA fraternity
this will never happen.
RAF pilots are the cream of the cream, selected by rejecting maybe 99% of applicants and they catch them very young. And it is a very rigorous high time on type regime. Tight preflight briefing. Any time not spent looking out is spent watching their wafer-thin fuel reserves
And most of their flying is on well rehearsed routes. Radar service provided on private UHF frequencies, by units which at the same time appear closed when GA calls them up.
GA will never be like this. Go to your local GA airfield and look at the demographics. Average age is about 50, average hours maybe 20/year, flying knackered wreckage with windows scratched by decades of cleaning with paper tissues and monkey-fisted maintenance.
Fuji is right about this thread going around in circles but pilots who use technology correctly do spend practically all their time looking outside - precisely because they have nothing to do. The route is loaded into the GPS, and you fly VNAV according to the plog.