Jim - who is going to drive it forward? The CAA chap who spent a day at Chiv looking at this before the civSAR went ahead was himself a 'trolley dolly' with no conception of what went in in a SAR helo.
The operators won't push it because they would have to pay more for licensed rear crew.
Perhaps this is why it had only been 'discussed' with no move forward for many years.
Quite.
There are numerous problems with giving this some momentum. As you say, the operators would have to pay more. In fact, my first words to the previous director of Bristow UK SAR on first meeting her were "Are you sure you're paying your rear-crew enough?" She didn't get it. And she didn't have the background that would have enabled her to 'get it'. MR aren't license holders or AOC holders and so we have no direct leverage (UK, Eire and elsewhere same situation) which leaves us with the political route which is tortuous and slow. Your old mates are little help since many of them were leaving anyway and the SAR operators pay them a lot more than shelf stackers or security guards and let them do a job they love for a lot more years: happy happy. What comes after them is a big worry. I'd say to the regulators, "Would you like to be a world-leading aviation regulator in the field of SAR or are you happy to wait for the accidents?"
(Time on the wire is not the same as air miles.) 