^^^ spot on, Rat 5. The emphasis on hands on flying is slowly going away. Thank God that most major airlines in the USA still put a heavy emphasis on hands on flying...that's a major issue with many other countries where A/P use is required for just about everything. Indeed, many SOPs that required good judgment in the past are now "lawyered up" and taken down to the lowest common denominator (read: idiot proof.)
After reading though the posts, I think I agree mostly with what was said above, "the erosion of terms"...I.e., the lowering of the bar as we go forward when it comes to training and hiring. The airlines have to address the upcoming shortages and we here in the US are worried that, at some point in the future, pilots will be hired cheaply through subcontractors using pilots from other countries with the absolute minimum training required. The ab initio courses are not that far removed from this. However, The 1500hr ATP rule puts somewhat of a kink to this plan and that's a good thing: requiring more hours and the ATP results in more experienced pilots that will probably not stand for bad T&Cs that a low time newbie would.
So I guess what im saying is, cadets from ab initio courses are not dangerous per se, the system works and the airlines' safety records prove it. But then again, we've seen a couple of accidents that are the result of inexperience and that has no place in an airliner cockpit. What I'm more worried about is the long term effects of these schemes in that it shows a general lowering of hiring standards that the airlines will undoubtedly take advantage of in lowering standards even further (the. "Give em an inch and they'll take a mile" syndrome.) Hiring standards should be going UP, not down, when it comes to experience. That's what I'm worried about.