For the first time in ages I'm perfectly satisfied with the NOTAM system - the last couple of narrow route briefings I've used were short, concise and 95% relevant. I'm not saying that it's perfect, but it's much much better.
BUT - if you end up with pages of cr@p about Brest control and the Welshpool NDB then why not check when you are talking to someone en-route? I had my skills test very shortly after the new system became mandatory and after half an hour myself, my examiner and the CFI could not be sure that we had spotted all the important NOTAMs (IIRC there were over 80 pages in what seems to be random order). We just asked every station that we talked to if there was anything we should know about - there was, a gliding competition from Lasham to Devizes (we were going to fly through the middle of it. It was NOTAMed but we missed it) and Farnborough were happy to tell us about it.
There are ways around the poor availability of NOTAMs, always have been. Better sorting, graphical displays of NOTAMs etc. may help some people, but the real problem is people making no effort at all to check their route is clear and then wandering around no talking to anyone (apart from their mate on 123.45
). Maybe the best thing would be for the CAA to recommend 'extensive retraining' for a few people, to make the rest of us try harder...