"what I do know is that since leaving the RAF, I have been exposed to a huge disparity in the quality of the civilian pilots I have flown with. The best are as good as anything the RAF has to offer,"
But that is partly due to the far greater number of pilots who are trained commercialy cp the RAF. Back in WW2 there were some great RAF pilots but I'm willing to bet a lot were average asthey had thousands of aircarft to fill. When you have a very small number of aircraft that don't fly v much (cp a commercial operation) you choose a very small cadre of the very best. When you need dozens of pilots to fly around Europe 24/7 you are by definition going to have a broader range of abilities.