Robert Mugabe...And if the next time something like the QF32 happens (and it will eventually as techology is constantly pushed to the limits) and the crew only have an FO who could push buttons....???
My point is that button pushing is the norm. Unfortunately the accident you mentioned demonstrates that when the buttons cannot be pushed the modern generation were found wanting. Lets not speak ill of the dead however and but for the grace of god and all that.
I am just suggesting that when automation gets better and more reliable the FO will be squeezed much the same way the flight engineers were made redundant by technology.
Where that leaves career progression who knows. When it can be demonstrated that single pilot ops with an observer is safe then that is what will happen. The great unwashed are driven by cost and safety.
If anything the main pilots renumeration could go up while the observers goes down.The downward movement of FO's terms seems to indicate that people are prepared to price themselves quite cheaply.