Well I would be concerned if regs were opened up too much, piloting does strike me as one of those things that you really only learn through experience. I guess I kind of look at it like doctors, those guys are putting in massive amounts of training hours before being on their own. Now granted, I do think they participate in the treatment plan with oversight from Sr staff rather then being isolated away just "practicing".
So I guess you could argue then getting someone in the right hand seat faster with far less experience would be beneficial. But then I worry a little about having a single point of failure... if anything happens to that pilot your right seat guy is now really inexperienced.
Maybe more advanced flight systems has helped balance out that risk/reward zone though.
I certainly don't want airfare to get more expensive but I get the crushing level of debt and then bottom of the barrel pay when you enter in...