I think at some point the question becomes why do you need any life insurance at all? That's basically Dave Ramsey's take - that you get term long enough to cover your early to middle years with kids/house/college/etc, then over time as you build wealth a surviving spouse will have enough money in savings and investments to live comfortably even with the loss of the income of the deceased spouse. The purpose of life insurance is to replace lost income, that's why most financial planners say to have 10-12 times your income in life insurance, so that when you die that lump sum invested will generate close to the lost income so the surviving family isn't left destitute. I would hope that most pilots approaching their mid 50's, and certainly 60 and up, are multi-millionaires to the point where even if they die their spouse will have plenty of money to live for decades. Of course anyone is free to purchase (or use the company provided insurance) in order to boost that amount, but that's more just a financial luxury as opposed to a necessity.

I still think that in the long term, just investing more money will yield better returns than trying to play some VUL shell game with the high fees and commissions. Obviously someone at that point is maxing out every tax-advantaged retirement vehicle, but even basic taxable brokerage accounts would still be a better deal in my mind.