Tuc, I've observed examples of many of the issues you note, but from my personal perspective, I always come back to the issue of competence (or call it SQEP if we must). The past and present members of the MAA I've met aren't on the whole incompetent neither are they unaware of some of the problems of what they're trying to achieve.
When you look at the civil regulatory approach, its hard not to be slightly impressed by the degree of success it achieves. It isn't perfect by any means but it works well 99% of the time. There were those who hoped that transforming the military approach to take advantage of the best of the civil system, would result in safer operations and far better performance; I was one of those. For a few years the UK MAA have been working with most of their other European equivalents (27 of them) to develop a military regulatory framework based on the principles of the EASA approach. In my eyes the effort has been remarkably successful due in no small part to the leadership shown by the UK MAA.
Most of the nations involved are now at various stages in the implementation of the new framework and the UK MAA is one of these. One of the main principles of the civil system is the emphasis on competent organisations and individuals when it comes to authority on matters of airworthiness. Unfortunately, when it's come to implementation, the leadership of the UK MAA seem to have been swayed by the consideration of what might happen in times of conflict. They could only rely on MOD staff and Service Operators therefore all authority must rest with 'Crown Servants' whether technically competent or not. When challenged on this, the standard response seems to be, well they'll just have to get competent then. I can't help thinking that this will in time just lead to "HC, the sequel".
EAP