Lambourne,
I for one really enjoy your posts! You are certainly correct that cognitive skills begin to deteriorate with age, sometimes slowly and sometimes fast.
What I have observed is the ones who want to stay past 60 are classified into 2 groups.
Group 1: 3 ex's, 3 sets of kids, and no money.
Group 2: no retirement skills, they define their lives on their supposedly superior cockpit skills.
Take a look at the MD-11 accident in RUH and hear all the sages trying to bring temp and unfamiliarity as an excuse.
Give me a Capt in his late 40's early 50's who is willing to listen and work together any day.
When they advocate dive and drive on non precision app's, just reaffirms their inability to adapt to tech changes in new generation A/C.