Silvaire,
I'm sure what you say is entirely reasonable, given my rather limited experience with FARs. Perhaps I should have qualified my earlier post by emphasising it's the situation under EASA in UK (being also aware that EASA elsewhere can be interpreted differently!).
It's an interesting notion (your post #12) about challenging the 'nuttiness' in court. I'm from a background of over 40 years in aviation maintenance across several disciplines, and this has conditioned me into obeying the law until someone changes it, which I admit can make me slow to challenge something which others may view as unreasonable. But nevertheless, until the law IS changed it stands as written and I believe it's a brave or very foolish man who ignores the law because he doesn't agree with it.
By all means challenge, but until the battle is won you're less likely to suffer if you obey it for the time being...... and it's certainly the case that in my experience the old (soon to be superseded) UK LAMP system has only rarely been used the way it was intended, and I do think that GMP will be more aligned with what the OEM recommendations are, which for many SHOULD mean lower charges as there will be less time spent arguing about what should or shouldn't be done at any particular input.
Bottom line: Accurate planning usually means less wasted time and effort, and therefore less likelyhood of being overcharged (barring rip-off merchants, of course)
