Titan 404, I think you misunderstood me, he didn't get reamed out for putting it down on the MR, there was never any doubt that it worthy of being placed on the MR as our MELs at the time had been written but were still pending approval, what he got reamed out for was doing it without bringing it to anyones attention, not the CP or Operations and then tieing the aircraft down at the end of the day and subsequently leaving the fact it had been grounded to be discovered the next day by another Pilot.
The company I was with didn't have problems spending money, hell, I myself grounded an aircraft one day because the alternate air cable have snapped off, it was an item required by the POH (Once again, this was just prior to our MELs, one of the many reasons we were getting them put in, but it seems you fully understand the benefits!!) so once brought to the attention of the Chief Pilot it was duly placed on the MR and an engineer was flown out to get it fixed ASAP.