Originally Posted by
Organfreak
When it comes to air safety, I think we should strive for the ideal...
I think we're talking at cross-purposes here. I
agree.
...even tho we all know that perfection is unattainable (something I learned long ago as a musician).
Me too.
"Good enough" is the friend of shoddy.
This wasn't a case of "good enough" as much as "the best that could be done in the circumstances". In this case guarding as much as possible against the risks inherent in doing things one way which could potentially have a bad outcome because to do things the other way would inevitably have a bad outcome.
good writing guidelines tell us that an opinion is obvious and the statement ID-ing it as such should be left out.
Whoever wrote those guidelines had clearly never encountered an internet forum before...
But it the opinion of someone with a great deal of piloting experience
Certainly, and if we were talking about airline operations, aeronautics and the like then I'd be all ears. But we're discussing an opinion he formed before he got that piloting experience on political grounds and one he has rigidly stuck to since. The equivalent with me would be over a decade of software engineering experience having no effect on the fact that I find Apple a loathsome company and have done since 1994 - not that it seems to have done them any harm over the last decade or so, so make of that what you will.
As for the rest of your answer: it doesn't apply. When premier experts design things, we still have to look at mistakes made, ones that could not have been foreseen by any designer-god.
Capt. Corps didn't design it, he was responsible for making sure that the system provided a safe and effective way of operating the aircraft, and doing so in a way that a majority of pilots would find relatively natural. By any objective measure, he succeeded. Seeing doing away with the yoke as a "mistake" is very much a minority opinion - and a dwindling one at that.