It's a bit difficult to comprehend how someone who's been carefully selected and subjected to closely monitored, highly structured, quality training - followed by 1000 hours bashing circuits in a Cessna - is in any way 'lowering standards' compared to a guy who funded his own training, made it thru at whichever training facility he chose, and then bashed the same circuits for a thousand hours.
Perhaps the JB MEC are expecting astronauts, albeit I've been told they head exclusively for Delta.