Have followed this thread with interest. I personally feel that EASA is just JAR all over again; yet again a massive upheaval for the industry creating gross amounts of totally unnecissary paperwork and eye-watering costs that drive pilots out of careers/hobbies and squeezes already pressed operators even harder, all for no safety benefit whatsoever (which is what JAR/EASA has supposedly been all about, ironically) and what seems to be nothing more that a thinly-veiled political agenda of empire-building.
The reason that many have went down the FAA route quite simply is down to much more reasonable costs for training, licensing, maintenance and less paperwork. The hard fact is that the FAA route for both pilots and operators is a much friendlier, easier, cheaper and far less hostile route than JAR/EASA. EASA obviously don't like this but it is they who created the "problem" of European pilots/operators being licensed outside the holy land of the United States of Europe. I say "problem" in quotation marks as it is only regarded as a "problem" by the twisted bereaucrats running the EASA project. Personally I see no problem in pilots/operators being foreign licensed as long as said licensing is ICAO compliant. As I'm sure most others do. However we have this situation where this political project and the people behind it harbour this childish grudge against anyone freeing themselves from their expensive, politically motivated, overburdened regulatory system.
I find it bizarre that EASA has seemingly been given free reign to ride roughshod over pilots and operators to such a shocking extent. But there again it is a political agenda, and such ways seems to be the way of things in Europe these days...
Just my thoughts
Smithy