Andrew Sarangan wrote
I think there is something else at play here. The 10,000+ hr pilot is
likely an airline pilot. I don't believe airline cockpit skills are
directly transferably to the GA cockpit.

If there are skills at all. An airline pilot friend of mine frets
about how he is going to operate his Baron. He says that while he
flew the DC-9 and 727, his airline recurrent training and experience
was OK, but now that he is in the Airbus (he refuses to call that
flying) he is really concerned.

I think your points about the crew environment and lack of redundancy
are well taken, but we may be missing the fact that the modern
airliner is just so much easier to fly than the complex single or
light twin typically flown by the airline pilot on his days off that
the skill level may simply have atrophied. If so, expect this to get
worse in the future.

Another interesting aspect of the Nall report is that student pilots
accounted for fewer accidents even though they accounted for more flying
hours.

I don't think that's interesting at all. It's hard to get hurt if you
never do anything. Student pilots fly under restrictions that would
make aviation useless - in fact, they are specifically prohibited from
doing most of the things that would make flying useful at all.
Unfortunately, I am lately seeing a trend among instructors to make
solo endorsements so restrictive that the student is never challenged,
and to avoid challenging flights dual as well. I have no doubt that
makes the training numbers look good, but the important question is
what happens AFTER the training, when the student goes out on his own
and starts using the airplane - especially those first few hundred
hours before real experience is gained, when the student relies most
on his primary training. I bet those numbers don't look so good.

Michael