In my mind there is an issue with how airlines are being run now days.
Rat5 said
The culture of the companies was to have good sound trustworthy capable pilots who knew how and what to do with their a/c in the whole spectrum of circumstances.
My guess would be that the airlines Rat is thinking of were run by people who actually knew what it was like, and what is required, to be a capable pilot. They would have understood the feeling of confidence that comes with being relaxed and comfortable manipulating the aircraft well in different situations and also how critical that confidence is to achieving good outcomes. In most airlines today, the people at the head of training who often understand this don't have much power within the company so their inclinations are watered down and tempered by those above them who are more concerned with short term economics. The result of this is that passionate people leave the roles in fairly short order to be replaced by people who are less concerned with the watering down of their ideas and more concerned with the office they hold.
Here is a question; Has the time allocated to simulator training increased subsequent to the CAA's requirements for manoeuvre
based assessment of RVSM contingencies, TCAS resolutions, Low Viz Ops, PRM break-outs, and RNP-AR approaches?
If not, what has been left out to fit all this in?