I've been talking to some of the guys who have recently done their command and they say that the difficulty of the assessment has not gone down so I don't think that they have decreased the intensity of the process, however, I do think that now guys are getting their **** together and realizing that you MUST get prepared for this bloody interview. In a way, the failures before has hopefully brought people to get seriously prepare. Their are definitely some guys who still have slipped through the cracks but not as many as we'd think. In general, the new captains I have flown with are all good guys and have lots of knowledge about the company's SOPs, OMA, FCOMS, etc. Now lets hope that this continues and that most of us will pass. Off course, if they don't want u in the left seat you won't make it, no matter how hard you prepare for it. Let's just hope that this won't be the case for the rest of us who's command might come this year.
ps. I apologies for a previous post, I recently found out that not 100% have passed, 2 guys have failed their second try. Like one of my Science professor said, luck helps you sometimes, work ... ALWAYS!