Engines, I appreciate your attitude as an Engineer, "well below VSO", to want to concentrate on the particular, to drill down to the fault, and rectify. Rather like the general case that you specify though, easier said than done. When a VSO gives a clearly illegal order in front of witnesses and no action is taken, no interview, no investigation, and certainly no charges, then one can but agree with you that
the tendency for VSOs to protect themselves and ex-VSOs, and so on
is an accurate statement of the situation that UK Military Aviation is now in. Unfortunately, pursuing those of "relatively low rank" will accomplish for the MOD exactly that for which it hopes, while the truth of the scale of subversion of the system remains hidden by the much beloved stovepipes.
As Military Aviation Professionals, we should surely face the facts, or aviation will quickly bite us back. UK Military Airworthiness provision is in a dire state. Never mind unairworthy ACO Gliders, grounded Nimrods (and now Hawks?), what of the front line operational fleets? The dysfunction is systemic; no aircraft, no system, no capability, is spared from its malevolent effect. UK Military Air Regulation and Accident Investigation has to be made effective again, lest the cost, in blood, treasure, and capability, continues unhindered. If the way that:-
bureaucracies hate to be embarrassed
stands in the way of that then we have to unite in insisting that reform of the MAA and MilAAIB goes ahead, by making them independent of the MOD and of each other, so that our military airfleets regain their airworthiness and avoidable air accidents are once again avoided.