Homesick,
I don't think there is a lot of anti-RAAus vitriol here... but as you say yourself, it's fundamentally different.
The enthusiasm of people like Ian comes, almost without exception, from people with zero understanding of Commercial Pilot Licence standards.
I used to drink at an aero club but I left because I was sick of all the RAAus pilots telling me what I was doing wrong when I was working. They have an RAAus licence (as do I, as well as my CPL and MECIR) and on that basis they seemed to believe they were qualified to criticise my work - criticising me for flying in cloud, for example
It is tantamount to a Boy Scout holding a 1st Aid badge watching a paramedic or a doctor and criticising their work. It springs from ignorance and arrogance.
When we point out that there are higher standards and greater requirements in CPL training than can be achieved in an RAAus machine, we get the Frank Arouets of the world accusing us of "eliteism"
Commercial Pilots are trained to the standards of a professional, able to handle a far wider range of variables and conditions than a PPL or a RAAus pilot.
THAT is because they are charged with transporting the general public.
I'm not a doctor, but I hold a Workplace First Aid certificate... would you let me operate on a member of your family?
I'm not a licenced financial advisor but I have had a bank account since I was 7 - that's over 30 years experience! I
MUST know what I'm doing with money! Would you like me to handle your Superannuation?
No of course not. But while you would defend your money with your life, you are willing to lower the standards for the training of professional pilots... even further... yet again... and put your family in an aircraft with them?
...just to feed your schoolboy fantasy that you really are just as good as a Commercial Pilot, even though you only have a Pilot Cert?
Man I just don't get it.