Staircase,
I am not an apologist for the financial services sector. But, a few thoughts back?
In 1975, when you and your peer group started saving, the basic rate of tax was 35%. Someone making £10,000 pa would have been paying tax at a rate of 63%. Drawing that income these days notwithstanding your recent decision to annuitise, at a modern marginal rate of 20% (or even less with some deft planning) represents a pretty good deal for the saver. If you had a portfolio of houses developed over the decades, you would have incurred quite a CGT liability but I take completely, your thoughts about the financial services sector and the uncertainty of legislation.
You refer to having a comfortable retirement - a report from the Pru this morning highlights that twice as many women who didn't save into a pension now don't have one similar, and the rates of retirement financial impoverishment are almost twice as high in the NE and SW, as they are in parts of the country where engagement did take place. I don't wish to diminish the relevance of what you say, and couldn't, but those joining up now have a far more uncertain future than those who started saving 40 years before them.
Flipping through the regs for AFPS15, the issue of declining benefits is not just a scandal of the private sector. Some of the proposed death/ill health benefits are shocking. I had a mate who got married just before getting onto the bus and deploying on Granby. Post 2015, unless you are married for 6 months, your widow/widower/civil partner will get nothing in the event of your death. Finally, the new investigation by he FCA into insanely costed and unfairly restrictive pensions from 30 years or so ago might offer you hope for a fair resolution?