T-Bar, the point about the FAs being female was that Sandilands refers to the FA at the rear as being male. Just showing how a couple of 'facts' in his story were incorrect- he needs to do more research.
Not sure what airline you're talking about Lilflyboy, but the 2nd crew member in J class on QF is only up there for the take-off/landing portion of the flight (i.e. to man their door) During service they generally assist in economy pretty much right away.
Interesting that DJ require crew to make their way to the o/wing. At QF they are considered 'self-help'- the times we are trained to go to them include in a ditching (to launch rafts on the -800) or to assess outside conditions during an alert phase (when all pax should be still sitting, commands given as such)
Ideally, a crewmember would be able to make it to the o/wing, but realistically, this probably would not be the case (either due to pax flow or incapacitation), so the briefing is meant to cover this at least so the pax operate the exits correctly. Not too sure on the statistic now, but I do recall reading in the past that the overwings are still the most incorrectly opened exits in emergencies.
Personally, I would not like to see the ratio go down further, purely because for most onboard emergencies (fire, dg etc) the drill requires 3 crew to participate. I'd like at least 2 more there to control the cabin & maintain flight deck surveillance at this time.