Old Akro, yes, something is very wrong with our system. From my experience, there is no specific training provided in the PPL, let alone RAA, regarding avoiding air to air incidents. We are taught "the rules of the road" and circuit joining and departure procedures, standard radio calls, etc,but not how to put all that together into a coherent set of behaviors consistent with good airmanship - that is not part of the syllabus! So much for competence based training!
My experiences therefore include: trying to land in the wrong direction at Maree because the Lake Eyre NOTAM confused me about appropriate broadcast frequencies in the vicinity of the circuit; learning that "oblique downwind" really means edging into downwind with your eyes over your left shoulder (sorry to the Twin driver), getting forcibly reminded that the join is at 1500 ft for good reason and numerous attempts to communicate with students of a Melbourne flying school West of that city who are too scared to say anything at all, even when it looks like they are heading for the same waypoint and will pass within 100 meters.
My "airmanship" now equates to something like orbiting immediately I get a garbled transmission that indicates another aircraft may be nearby unless I can establish Two way comms with the other pilot. If I hear an RPT aircraft heading for the circuit my initial reaction is to run and hide until it's clear. Frankly, I have no faith in anyone's ability these days and my airmanship "training" has been from scaring myself or being growled at by other pilots.
And a pet peeve of mine: experienced pilots who seem to follow the old (Military - artillery) habit of confusing professionalism with speaking as fast as they can as one word: "traffiswunhillcesntwoohsixtenmilsouondescentforwunsevtraffi swunhi" and expect that the rest of us to understand and comprehend.