As I said, I've no problem with the concept of avoiding dedicated DZ's. It's the somewhat anarchic shared airfields that scare me.
Couple of points have arisen in the replies though
Are civilian parachutists supposed to jump through cloud?
'see and avoid' is supposed to include seeing approaching fast jets in uncontrolled airspace - with a lot less than 60 seconds between dot on the horizon becoming close-up of Jaguar but a lot of accident reports have blamed the (dead) GA pilot for not seeing it.
Therefore I'm not entirely sure that I buy the argument that there's not enough time for a freefaller to look where he's going.
Thanks for the replies though.