Maybe I am missing the point here, I confess to only skim reading the last few posts. Tell me how on earth ANY rule changes would have made any difference to that ABC crash, or any other.
Operating under the IFR you still need to take off, and hand fly at least a little bit, and the crash happens in that phase of flight.
The only rule that will prevent crashes like this is to ban night flight in all instances. And we all know how practical that is.
Is this just a media beat up? Did the ATSB suggest something that was….errr dumb?