There's something that springs to mind as I read through these posts.
There's no such thing as a "civilian licence".
There's an FAA licence, a New Zealand licence an Australian licence and so on ad infinitum. These licences are certainly not universally interchangeable even though all the pilots may be performing basically the same job in the same airspace. It has nothing to do with experience, flying ability or even knowledge. Its all about the syllabus and what each regulatory body feels is important in their own operating environment.
While I was sitting in the waiting room at Redhill I overheard a conversation between several pilots waiting for their "Performance A" examination. An indignant Canadian CPL holder was complaining that he had to take the exam even though he already held a Canadian CPL on the same type of aircraft as he was to fly on the UK register. After much discussion it came to light that this Canadian fellow was re-sitting - having failed "Performance A" on two previous occasions.