There was a recent report which made me think what a total idiot!
A guy elected to fly his girlfriend and was flying on top expecting the cloudbase at his destination to be at 2000 feet
....
I am sure someone will post a link to the actual report
Actually, the report isn't out yet
AFAIK, so much of what you describe is, no offense, conjecture. But still, GREAT example! I could not disagree more with your conclusions.
The fact is: recreational pilots are almost always "out of practice". It goes with the territory. This case is an absolutely classic scenario. The man messed up the approach. If you want to ban people who do that from flying, there'd be no pilots. Not a one. To pretend that the way to reduce GA accident rates is to only allow perfect or "real" pilots to fly is beyond ridiculous. People make mistakes. From lowly GA flying to Airbii (and I already hear you say: only the French...) and the military. The way to deal with it is NOT to ask for zero mistakes, because it won't happen.
In any aircraft but the Cirrus, the penalty for messing up the approach would have been death. Not only of the pilot, but also of the passenger. I fail to see again and again how there's any problem with these two people still being among us.