727gm,
Remember our original poster is UK based. Here in Europe there has been increasing trend for airlines to give less credit to instructional hours, a number of the operators that took self improvers ten or 15 years back are now only taking low timers from CTC or Oxford.
In the US the 1500 hour rule means there isn't a choice people will have to instruct or do some other GA based activity to build the time, which is not a bad thing as it will limit the applicants available for jobs on FAR 25 aircraft. Further the new EASA rules make it very difficult for new instructors to get the EASA equivalent of a CFII.
Depone,
I more wanted to say that while an academic background may have benefits, there are still a number of naturally good pilots who aren't academic types, a high academic entry may preclude some of these individuals, but on the other hand there are also some individuals who have a good aptitude for flying who can't raise the necessary funds. So any entry requirement will always be to an extent unfair to one group; but I would rather the barrier favoured the intelligent rather than the rich.