Panda, you are closing your eyes and ears to the fundamental point made by several of us, repeatedly, that hours in a log book don't always constitute useful experience. You criticise short haul for being unchallenging, but that's where you get the most take offs and landings for a given number of hours and typically where you use the least well equipped airports and the shortest runways. Frankly, the biggest challenge for long haul is fatigue and boredom. Fly around the EU in the locos and you're landing jest on 5500' runways off NPAs in valleys, and doing a lot of contaminated runway ops in the winter too. It's also extremely congested airspace with a lot of different cultures and languages. Still think that doesn't count? Why do you think many of the legacy airlines are now specifically targeting EZY and RYR for recruitment, rather than charter or other legacy carriers?
Even then, in the rapid-fire LOCOs, experience and hours don't go hand in hand, and ability and hours are almost completely divorced. I see guys with a few years on line who have never had a diversion, and others who have just started their second season and had diversions, technical issues, medical emergencies and so on. Hours and experience are a lottery, and it's arguable as to whether it's luckier to have lots of things happen to you or none; personally, I think those who sail through with never a challenge are the unfortunate ones. But I have to say the sharpest FO I have seen yet was not only doing just his second year, but is also very young, and he was (is) exceptionally aware and capable, more so than several 15000hr captains I know.
Those who push the hours=experience=safety angle are almost exclusively frustrated long haul FOs. That might not be the case here, I don't know, but that's how it comes over.