About the incident- anyone could have done what the Thai crew did. Australian jet crews over the years have nearly landed on roads, botched go-rounds, taken off at night without lights, nearly ran wing tanks dry, nearly hit hills in the hold, descended below altitude restrictions. Anything else? I prefer to look at this incident as a learning exercise.
With respect to pilot standards, we are not taught these days to excel, we are taught to be average. Very few colleagues I fly with practice hands on flying, let alone manual thrust. Very few will also continue the approaches if visual early just to see where the minima really is and what you would be looking at ( always fun at Cooly and Maroochy.........sorry Goldy and Sunny). This is part of our culture nowadays. The sim is treated as checking tool. Not a training device. Schedules are crammed. Rosters make you want to do the minimum amount of work required. Sops do not contain words like "Captain's discretion"or "common sense". And if anything goes astray, JUST see what a JUST culture will do for you.
About the approach type debate- RNP will quite happily fly you into the ground even with VNAV engaged if you miss set the QNH.