1. The AEO course was 13 months - ie longer than the pilot and nav courses
Ahem, the Pilot course elementary, basic and advanced is ~2 years and the Navs is about 2 months short of that - best case not including OCU! So 24 months and 22 months versus 13 months; no wonder you are an AEO/AEOp!
We tried some AEOs in Tornado in the early days. Yes, they could work the kit, but they did not have the skills to do the planning and airborne navigating. Yes, you could have trained them, but why bother when they would need to do the bulk of the Navs course. In fact, some AEO/AEOps did a Pilot or Nav crossover and turned into very fine aviators indeed; as have Navs doing a Pilot crossover. There are also many experienced Navs that have whooped qualified Pilots in ACT in either a twin-sticker or Hawk in the past.
So I guess it comes down to training and/or experience. After "you can teach monkeys to fly better than that!"
iRaven