I say all CPL and ATPL holders should resit exams every 2 years so that they stay fresh.....
Yes, we all need to be able to flight plan a B727 or Echo Mk 4....NOT!
I do enough checks a year, thank you very much. 4 Cyclics, 1 Route Check, EP's and CRM. Then DG's every other.
Let's retest all motor vehicle licence holders every 2 years. It'll probably save more lives.
One of the reasons standards are atrocious is because you have a majority of sub-200 hour pilots attempting to teach. Until such time as minimum experience levels are raised, nothing will change.
An addage to this is that flight instruction offers a very limited career path, unless you are fortunate enough to land a job at one of the large colleges. Even then, the temptation of an airline with remuneration (in many instances) several times the maximum you could ever earn teaching at colleges is present. And quite often the workload is less.
Until such time as the role of the Flying instructor is given the value it deserves, the standards will continue to decline.......
Going to the hangar and watching maintenance is nice for one's knowledge, but what is the practical significance? So what if we know "that is a magneto" and "that is an oil filter" As pilots, we are quite limited (rightly so) in what maintenance tasks we can perform. Those teaching future professional pilots need to concentrate more on the basic skills of flying and less on the sundries.