Indeed, I think you missed the glory days of rec.aviation, but I learned more from rec.aviation.ifr than I ever have from PPRuNe
Maybe I missed the glory days but I remember it well. Quality discussion has moved to web forums but there has been a huge drop in quality over the years - I think partly (initially) due to the old hands having got bored with going over the same old stuff, and more recently because so many people post with Iphones which reduce postings to banal one-liners because (even assuming the user can actually write) writing anything meaningful is too much bother.
I've always hoped that the FAA-TC bilateral would be the model for an FAA-EASA bilateral on licensing. Rumour has it that progress is slow,
As I have always said, any bilateral treaty on FCL cannot possibly deliver anything substantially better than the "standard European way" of converting FCL papers.
There will always be some
exams, and there will always be a
flight test. There may be acceptance of foreign training (like in the CBM IR proposal, but FTO pressure all but killed that route by demanding 100hrs instrument time, which probably equates to 1000+hrs TT, and ensures FTOs don't lose revenue by ATPL cadets doing FAA CPL/IRs in the USA first) but the fact that you have to pass the UK IRT, with its NDB work, means that such a concession is moot since practically nobody will pass the IRT without being in the clutches of an FTO (or fly with a freelance CRE/IRR) for many hours....
So you may get the treaty but it won't mean much in practice, to the actual process.