Pace, sorry mate but that just is NOT going to happen, EVER!! Your bar confidant is leading you up the garden path, so do yourself a big favour and take the exams...it aint rocket science, and if you have even 100 hours of jet time you will p1ss them in one take.
You keep banging on about the hardship of taking exams...what about the poor sods who can't pass the medical? Did you ever bother to think of them? Probably not huh? You were too busy banging on about the difficulty of passing exams which, I presume, you decided to avoid earlier in your career.
Swallow the pill.....the rights and wrongs of this issue relate to a period that is well gone and as hard as you may wish it to be undone it just is NOT going to happen!
I disagree with all of it too, but hey ho that's the way it goes!