I'll believe that FAs are there primarily for my safety when the airlines start hiring registered nurses to be FAs- that was a criterion when they originally started using FAs on passenger flights.

One point in their defense: the FA who got in deep trouble for deploying the emergency slide on a plane to get the heck out mentioned that so many people who boarded were already exhausted and frazzled by the airport experience- the TSA lines, not enough seats in the gate area, blaring TVs, beeping carts, repetitive announcements. So the FAs are already dealing with a lot of pent-up anger that they did nothing to create.

I believe that the biggest problem among the legacy airlines in North America is the union structure which treats any FA who goes to another airline as a newbie- even if they have 20 years of previous experience. It means that most of them will grimly hang onto their current job, no matter how much they hate it, because of the perks of seniority. And it shows.