I think a lot of it has to do with reliance on GPS and not being proficient in VORs, ADF, NDB... Old school style. I have noticed a big difference in instructors too. Older instructors don't really like you to be so reliant on GPS (for good reason... its a wonderful tool, but should be your only means of SA) and younger guys aren't as reluctant to rely on it so much.

And yet more of it has to do with certain areas. Anyone who has flown around central FL on the weekends can attest to this. Every yahoo with an experimental, ultralight, recreational license, and wet private are out dorking around in the sky being about as safe as a skydiver without a parachute. I've almost had mid-air collisions several times at uncontrolled fields due to some idiot not knowing where he is in the pattern or not making his call-outs appropriately. I cussed out someone over CTAF in Palatka (not professional I know, but this idiot really pushed my buttons) because I called right base to final and he comes out of nowhere with a "base to final" call for the same runway. I was saved by the fact that I was a little high and I watched him go right through my flight path about 200 ft below. He got mad that I yelled at him and gave me the, "I fly here every weekend! Who do you think you are!?" I'm out here dropping skydivers out of the sky and this idiot is just out farting around not making any calls.

And don't even get me started on the huge amount of foreign student pilots around here who tie up the radios with unintelligible gibberish and really can't fly worth a crap. Nuttier than squirrel **** around here some days.

On my last checkride, my DPE mentioned that in the next 10 years... there will be a push by the FAA to make a Private Pilot rating include an Instrument rating. Basically 2 ratings in one. Will cost twice as much, but I think it isn't the worst idea. It would make things a lot safer I would think. It would basically go: Sport/Recreational, Private (including all the instrument training), Commercial, etc... What would everyone think of something like this?