"If one pays for a flight school, the FAA automatically passes them". Yep, almost. Why do you think so many student pilots pick a pilot examiner instead of the FSDO? The FSDO is free for check rides! The answer is flight schools are business. Most part 141 flight schools have their own pilot examiners for that given school. Think about it, if you ran that flight school and all of your students were busting their rides, you would go out of business in a short amount of time. I'm not saying that any pilot who went to a 141 school is a bad pilot and paid for his or her rating, however, I've seen people pass rides at flight schools that really should not have.