What appears to be forgotten amongst all the claims of professionalism and career instructors is that PPL training was for many years, and still is in many countries, a recreational activity. The primary objective is to produce pilots who can enjoy flying safely and at reasonable cost without masses of bureaucracy.
The demise of the AOPA agreement where AOPA controlled all PPL examiners, and the disbandment of the Panel of Examiners lead to all Flight Instruction being regarded as a commercial activity under CAA direction. The former Commercial Flight Instructor simply became an extension of the PPL instructor. The BGA and the BMAA have managed to retain the recreational status of their instructional activities during these changes.
EASA recognises the recreational nature of GA flying, possibly due to the involvement of some of the smaller GA groups but has fudged the whole thing with poorly drafted regulation and unnecessary new licences that exceed ICAO minima, but then fail to qualify as ICAO licences. There is a perfectly good "Recreational" licence described in ICAO Annex 1 with realistic minimum requirements called a "PPL" that has served us well for 60 years.
The requirement for CPL "level" knowledge appears in ICAO Annex 1 but it does not require a pass in the CPL exams! For many years the UK used a FIC pre-entry exam to determine CPL level knowledge. It was the bureaucrats who interpreted this as having to pass CPL exams to indicate this level. In practice, a PPL with around 300 hours of light aircraft experience is better equipped to undertake a FI Course than a graduate of an Integrated ATPL course with 700 hours of theoretical knowledge behind them. With no training analysis ever conducted, CPL exams are simply a hotch-potch of handed down military questions and third rate add-ons. I recall the day when the RAF provided the UK questions to the Board of Trade, before the CAA was invented!