One lesson to come out from this for airports is that runway / movement area inspections by ARFF are no good for electrical or pavement inspections - IMHO.
This is not to detract from the valuable job that ARFF do in emergency responses, nor the value of their routine inspections. But this accident has shown, like other accidents I know of, that such "drive-by" inspections are limited. Their frame of reference is to detect gross deficiencies such as wheels, flaps, cargo doors, etc., lying on the runway, or other obstacles such as dead animals. That is as far as the ARFF are trained to do, and as much as can be expected from their inspection.
Overrun:
I agree with you on these points. Having never been as far south as JNB in my flying days, I am not is a position to say who does what at that airport. However, I can say what happens at KLAS/LAS and how things are done there. We do have an ARFF unit and they have certain duties but NONE of them include runway/taxiway inspections and certainly not lighting on the airfield. Here those items are run by the county's department of aviation, airside division, specifically the Airside Operations Coordinators. It is their job and mandated by FAR 139, to take care of all those inspections. Those inspections are done routinely once per shift, three times daily. After inclement weather or an incident, more often. It is all documented in a shift log and if any deficiencies are found a work order is generated or if it's critical, the duty electrician or airfield mx are called out. The coordinators are the inspectors and the airport has a dedicated team of mx workers, electricians, bldg. mx, airport equipment mechanics etc to draw from.
During swing shift, an additional lighting check of the whole airfield is made after the sun goes down, including all runways and taxiways. On graveyard, the runway inspection is even more thorough for lights, FOD, spalls and takes up to 15 minutes per runway! Again, all of this is documented. We work very closely with ATC and in fact, while ATC "controls" aircraft, it is only the AOCs that have the authority to close a runway or taxiway for safety reasons. Matter of fact, last time we did that was last month for our longest runway (25R-7L) when we had that BA 777 mishap that closed the runway for a little over 8 hours
Finally, just to make sure the airport is run safely and up to spec, we have a team of FAA airport safety inspectors come look at us for 3 consecutive days each year, trying to find a reason to slap us with a fine or revoke our certificate. Maybe the team in JNB should come visit us for a week.....