Fireflybob, you are absolutely right. I never see airline pilots starting a technical discussion about flying topics - which can be explained as a lack of interest towards a job which either has not been really chosen for what it is - to fly aircraft - or which is inherently boring, or more likely as a lack of backgroud - as what I hear is often childish at best.
Everybody here and elsewhere does seem to acknowledge the lack of basic flying skills of modern airline pilots, the gradual erosion of those skills... by the way, did they really exist one day ?
There is one solution, and as long as it will not be implemented, stupid crashes like those one will continue to occur, with dummy pilots stuck to their seats and looking helplessly at the horizon - visual or instrumental - spiralling in front of them : put priority in recruiting ex-fighter pilots, all over the world, which means consider that 2000 hrs of combat jets in 10 years have the value of 15000 spent in airliners, doing only God knows what - like reading the news, chatting in the galley with the CC, sleeping on controlled rest, sleeping in the CRC, or doing navigator but not pilot job as PNF, logging all the hours as "pilot"hours.
I know it might be tough for some.