Perhaps one reason we got away with all that stuff was because we were pilots first and systems managers second - I'm not so sure that balance hasn't moved out of kilter in recent years with ever cleverer equipment, reduced training hours and tighter budgets.
I'm not convinced the accident rate stats back-up the rose-tinted spectacle view Crab. There's plenty of evidence to show that a lot of aviators didn't 'get away with all that stuff' in the past.
One of the reasons this incident stands out is the very low numbers of fatalities amongst SAR crews (in the UK anyway) in recent years. Thats not to say that there haven't been plenty of occasions when the 'holes' very nearly lined up.