my thoughts are that the casa micromanagement totally skews the environment to the detriment.
if I put my car in for servicing the mechanic will tell me if he discovers anything that needs to be done beyond what the basic service costs. we then work out together what the course of action will be.
Unless the guy is a total shonky the owner will take the car away satisfied.
in aviation this isn't the case. LAME's think that they work for CASA and the owner is a fool. often the owner is told nothing about the problems found and walks into the shop past an aeroplane that looks pretty much the way he left it and gets the bill.
in the case of an aeroplane I flew down for maintenance with the owner as a passenger with a broken foot. the owner was hit with a $12,000 bill for the annual. the LAME made no effort to tell the owner that he had found a problem, a chafed engine mount tube.
the really frustrating thing is that the owner is a far better TIG welder than the guy the LAME used and could have done the job for nothing.
The basic relationship between a LAME doing an annual should be a simple commercial relationship with the owner. CASA doesn't own the aeroplane.
the problem is that CASA is so overbearing that LAME's turn their attention to servicing the regulatory overhead and ignore the customer.
It is not a good healthy environment thanks to CASA.