The Press, the thread, and Annex 1
A few (succinct) inputs:
1. If the quality of discussion on the forum has declined over the past several years as more posters have shown up lacking any piloting credentials whatsoever, part of the reason for the decline also is, over the same time period, a greater number of individuals have found that posting on internet message boards at all is an interesting and - sometimes - useful thing to do. I can't prove this correlation between SLFs-with-agendas and increased propensities to type on keyboards wired together, but it is true in many other sectors (the rise of internet-based "learning platforms" in higher ed, for example, over approximately the same time period).
2. BEA is part of the system France, as a sovereign State, applies to civil aviation and accident investigations - and the French system includes a much more dominant criminal and prosecutorial element than in the U.S. or U.K. or most all other States. NOT saying this is better, worse, or any thing of the sort - just that the criminal-system element changes the willingness of authorities to disclose to the press, media, public.
3. Talk of imposing tighter and/or more extensive mental health evaluations on flightcrew members - great, please give me the roadmap for how the SARPs would be formulated so as to apply across the many different cultures, traditions, even societal conceptualizations of what is "mental health" in the first place. Annex 1 of the Chicago Convention would authorize ICAO to reform airman licensing so as to include a greater component of mental health screening - but a high degree of skepticism is needed that this could be accomplished in a manner which encompasses the many different social attitudes of the many divergent States which are State Parties to the Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention of 1944).