Cat Driver,
No, I'm completely with you. If I had to give myself a political category it would be 'small government liberal'. Regulation is necessary to an extent, but it can easily be overdone and the more risk one tries to eliminate the more freedom one erodes. I'm all for people strapping canoes, snowmobiles or washer-dryers to their aircraft and then taking the risk of whether it will fly or not, as long as they have a few guidelines and are aware of the risk they are taking. AND as long as they don't squeal when things go tits up.
The interesting thing for me is that you can still do this kind of stuff in the USA. This is the place where light aircraft production was almost choked to death by liability issues and where even today the New Piper company is trying to stop Cubcrafters new building Super Cubs on the basis that New Piper may still get sued if someone crashes.
A land of contradictions. (And all the more interesting for that!)
QDM