Dreamshiner,
I actually think you have touched on a very important point here. In some ways you can't blame OAA for offering this scheme - as as you point out, without it, it's just more (f)ATPL holders waiting on an upturn.
However one has to question whether in offering this scheme OAA have undercut their own USP - which is to be percieved as "the best" (and please note all, I'm not arguing for one second whether OAA ARE or ARE NOT the best - simply that from a pure business perspective this is their USP). In offering this particular scheme I wonder if OAA have moved away from "the best" and instead relegated themselves to "any other" FTO and in so doing having just become a more expensive version of the licence one can gain at any other school.
Wingswinger. This scheme exists. Speaking as an OAA grad who has said no to it...can't vouch for the numbers, save that I'm one of the 95.