It remains a tragedy that it has taken so long to bring this matter within a gnat's breadth of a conclusion. It is a credit to Brian Dixon for starting what is probably one of the longest threads on the Internet. It is a credit to the forum for allowing us to indulge ourselves here over the years. I would refer you to my earlier postings, but they are no longer appropriate.
I really wish the senior airships would understand what they have done and the harm they have caused. They seem blissfully unaware of the depth of feeling at 'our' level. They still seem blissfully unaware that so many of us, with differing levels of experience (my 1000+ hours on SH are as nothing to some who contribute here), do not understand how they reached the conclusions they did no matter how much we read those conclusions .
It would be nice to think, as others have hinted, that some good will come out of this and the system will be improved for the collective good of those who serve now and those who have yet to serve.