Just a thought, but if the Authorising Officer themselves only has experience of the current 'low hours' system, perhaps this would be the default normal ops to them and hence this is what we do, we've 'always' (in their experience), done it this way. Therefore it'd be ok to authorise the trip, its no different to any in their experience.
Jumpseater - exactly the point. When the supervisors begin to view 10 hours a month as "normal" (BlindWingy), the very act of supervision becomes diluted by the pervasive inexperience of the operating community. Eventually those who truly understand the relationship between currency and competency begin to form the minority (or end up posting on PPRuNE) and the corporate or tribal knowledge is lost until a tragedy such as this brings it sharply back into focus.
Chugalug - that relates to your point, it's not a question of being silent, it's simply that the more experienced crew crew becomes almost an anochronism in a crew room full of bright new shiny people eager to get any flying, never mind a whole 10 hours a month.
The checks and balances we have in place to prevent the erosion of skill levels and maintain flying standards, be it at Unit or CFS level all fall victim to the reduced flying rates and the ever present "Op Tempo" where training hours are always at a premium. All driven by the cheerless scotsman in Number 10 of course, but an awful lot of people in the chain of command have to play ball before these failings become as institutionalised as in this case.
And finally I would agree completely that Airworthiness and Release to Service are all predicated on an assumed operator skill level and maintenance of that skill level. When that assumption is incorrect, the RTS by default is effectively invalid.