The quaint notion that things will somehow revert back to where they were two decades ago, is simply nonsense. They can't because the fundamentals have changed. The mask that this current economic downturn provides, is a set of hoardings. If you find a crack and peek behind those hoardings, you will see investment and reorganisation going on at many of these large FTO's in preparation for the expansion that they intend to profit from.
I don't doubt that, and I find this a very interesting discussion from the perspective of someone who is shortly to embark on CPL training at a modular school.
I suppose the hope for those of us who cannot go through the traditional 'integrated' route, for whatever reason, is that the upturn will give rise to additional opportunities for low hours pilots: whether these be opportunities to enter airlines directly as with the Ryanair and the CTC takeoff scheme; or just more and better opportunities for 'experience building' GA jobs of the type Bealzebub mentions.
At the moment for those who are not on integrated airline cadetships, it really does just seem to be Ryanair, instructing, or nothing and I can well imagine that life gets in the way and forces people to give up.