Pretty much every major airline has gotten away from heavy systems knowledge, and focuses on operational knowledge. Here at the mother ship, I've never been asked the kind of systems questions we used to get at Eagle. On the 737 we have eliminated all the memory items (the Bus still has one, I believe). When I first got here, and asked if I should be studying the locations of the cabin emergency equipment, I was told "why would you do that? there is a chart in the QRH if you think you need to find something back there".

My issue with the gearbox question on the 145 was always, why should I care?

Is there a QRH procedure for engine accessory gearbox failure? (there wasn't the last time I flew it, but that was pushing 10 years ago). Will you ever see an EICAS message "ENG 1/2 ACC GEAR BOX FAIL"? Again, the answer was no back then.

You will get some other messages, the airplane will prioritize them, you will do the appropriate checklists, and the QRH will let you know about systems lost and any follow up items. Why complicate things unnecessarily?