Max reheat and 5 rings.... I must apologise, the quote you have both mentioned has actually been misinterpreted due to my exceptionally poor wording. What I meant Is that traditionally a flight deck with a decent experience level would probably cost the company >£150k per year. This is very very expensive when viewed in context of the cost savings or revenue generation it can directly bring. Thus companies seek to mitigate and reduce the cost impact.
What those same companies miss however, very sadly is that actually, these staff members are the one thing that absolutely will stop the business in it's tracks. What's even sadder is that, as max says, pilots seem reticent to demonstrate exactly how important they are to the overall business.
I hope I've cleared that up, I certainly did not mean that pilots offer no value...purely that a pilots ability to affect finances of the company is very small in comparison to their perceived cost. It is a tremendous shame that focus on just how very important they are has been lost.