I don't think you can put all the blame on Airbus. Both manufacturers and the airlines have been trying to dumb down the profession so that they could justify shorter training courses, (ccq,mpl) and then claim that pilots didn't do anything so they should be paid less. Despite the claims that flying is safer than it has ever been, the media has focused on MH 370 and Germanwings in a way that stirs up the visceral fear of flying a lot of people have. At the end of the day however any media attention to such things as pilot training will hopefully generate reasonable discussion.
As far as the assertion about flying being a "cool" job. There are still lots of young wannabes who still think this and from what I read on other threads cashed up not so young wannabes.