Good post mate,
My reply was written exactly because yours was the single post recently that actually weighed up the pros and cons of purchased type ratings along with a positive alternative route. It was written for those reading your thoughts and not you yourself.
As you know too well jet type ratings have raised their nasty little heads in several threads recently. Before they become flavour of the month and a training provider jumps onto a lucrative bandwagon you guys need to hear the other side of what they can do to your putative careers.
Your arguements are entirely rational and thought through but the truth has to be told to those who just listen to the stories they hear. A jet rating on your licence tells an interviewer at a good but non 737/jet company that you'll sod off just as soon as you can - nothing else.
Secondly, unless an interviewer attends the **** ups at major training providers they wouldn't know what an ACp or TPX or XZY course is if it jumped up and bit their backsides. Some of you are shelling out big money on so called advanced courses and the majority of people reading your CV's haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about.
There is an entire layer of industry between you as wannabees and us in the seats of jets. That layer has its own agenda, living to make, companies and careers to improve. This is entirely seperate to what you want to do.
Spend a few months on this forum and you'll all find out which ones also share and want to further at least some of your interests.
Finish on an upbeat is what we tell our mods so here's the close.
The contract market is going demented - airlines and corporate. Even airframers are struggling to find crews for deliveries and demos. This of course is the market for the significantly experienced and there are few who willingly want this type of work. If we get a bit longer without martial unpleasantness or a significant player going bust the shuffle up through the industry will really make itself felt again.
It's all carefully hidden but savage undercrewing is really beginning to bite across a swathe of UK companies. There are a few of you who will really think about where you want to be in five years time and not just grasp at expensive straws. We hope to add a few more to that select bunch.