Lexair - what a brilliantly worded and put together piece, of which I could not agree more of. From what I believe this very FOI was a strong driver of use of simulators where available after the Air-North EMB120 accident in DN.
In my time in aviation I haven't recalled a FOI ever being killed in an accident where they were on duty in an observational role. Perhaps as part of this process now they will have to look at it from a WH&S perspective from an employer point of view.
This industry can be excellent to introduce all manner of things to minimise the chances of crashing aircraft, GPWS, TCAS, etc etc, but all of those are in the higher profile areas of RPT and jets.
GA flies around in 40 year old aircraft with a 40 year old mentality. There is a better way of doing things, exactly as you said, sadly it may have taken the death of one of their own for finally some change to result out of this terrible accident.