elektra - perhaps my use of the phrase 'world standard' was a little misplaced. What I was alluding to was the brevity of the Virgin interview process. Since you've asked for interview processes that are comparably longer, how about these:
Qantas
Cathay Pacific
Emirates
Singapore
British Airways
all of the worlds air forces
(to name just a few...)
I think that you would be hard pressed to justify your statement that "...all these psych tests are irrelevant, baseless and without foundation" unless you had some sort of psychological training. You are more than entitled to your opinion, but if all of these testsare so obviosuly non relevant, why do airlines continue to do them? After all, it is obviously much cheaper to take the virgin approach & get things over & done in half an hour or so. If Virgin are quite happy with the results of their recruitment process, then all the better for them. From all reports, many airlines with longer processes would seem to be happy with theirs too. It will be interesting to see if the interview process changes much over time as the company grows large enough so that it can't rely on recommendations from mates for new hires. While it has (reportedly)worked reasonably well up to know, I can't imagine that it can do so indefinitely.
I don't have any substantiated facts to support my argument, as psychological testing isn't my chosen field. Having said that, do you have any to offer in return? To assert that any one 'culture' is safer than another is a bit of a sweeping generalisation - I'm sure you'll find that all operators, from the worlds airforces down to GA operators around the globe, of all different cultures, will continue to have accidents & incidents, regardless of where their 'culture' lies on the spectrum.
At the end of the day, it sounds as though you're happy where you are, and I'm more than happy where I am. We obviously come from different schools of thought on this issue - on that we can agree.
International operations to New Zealand will no doubt take place. It will be interesting to see what sort of trade offs Virgin earn as a result of their protests over the Qantas/Air New Zealand tie up - particularly in regards to tax exemptions etc from the NZ government. However, I can hardly see Virgin expanding much further north than Port Moresby or Bali - not in the face of competition within the region from Singapore, Cathay, Malaysian, DragonAir etc. Plus they might have to move even further away from their low cost base model - with interesting results...