Not the correct message, JT. The correct message is that:
(1) There is no safety case to show that the risk (if any) intended to be mitigated by the flight test for the ATPL is most effectively and efficiently mitigated by the test as proposed.
(2) The existence of persons exercising the privileges of an ATPL without having passed a flight test for the ATPL shows either that: (I) the test is not indicative of anything with a substantive safety consequence; or (II) lower standard candidates are nonetheless acceptably safe to continue exercising the privileges of the licence.
If it costs a $1million to become a competent brain surgeon, then stiff ****, that's how much it costs. The public isn't going to cop the argument that "I can't afford $1million to be what I've always wanted to be." The only argument that has any chance of gaining traction, in the face of the mystique of aviation that can be used to justify just about anything, is that the test makes no difference. (That's why I facetiously suggested that, in the interests of safety, the test should be carried prior to each and every flight on which someone proposes to exercise the privileges of an ATPL.
)
At a strategic level, I do laugh at all this "operate effectively as a crew member" stuff. A glorified way of expressing the "no dickheads" policy. Problem always is that you have to make sure that no dickheads are administering the tests or succumbing to pressure put on them by dickheads in management, otherwise you just end up with an "only dickheads like us" system.