"Given how airline pilots world wide continue to find new ways of pranging perfectly serviceable aircraft I'd suggest that your point 2 is somewhat flawed. Indeed I'd argue that the standards amongst first level carriers are quite similar but that's a very different thing to 'all airline pilots'."
Air France, Continental twice, American twice, Fedex, UPS. These airlines have all had accidents in the last 2 years. Are they "first level".