Maturing Our Sport, Interconnected topics

We talk about ESS changes, CCC and EN-C speed limiters, equalizers, harness protectors, and IAS airspeed limits in separate topics and somehow cannot find enough agreement to back up any of those individual proposals.

So we go with the least resistance and don't change anything.

Or we do something which feels-good, like the CCC 14 cm limit, but which in turn might have contributed to a large number of incidents/accidents in the last few years, as it forced all CCC manufacturers to use unstable profiles.

If we keep looking at individual pieces of the puzzle, nothing will change. One example: "Do we have data about accidents in final glide?" No. So we don't change the ESS.

Like, how many accidents do we need to have so that we can say we've got enough data? Luc has shown extremely detailed data about glider profiles proving that we are already on the limit of instability and we would need to fly even faster gliders if we don't change the rules now.

We need to explain to pilots why we need to stop the speed-maxing development in CCC and EN-C; otherwise, there'll be more and more fatalities if this continues.

We need equalizers; we need protectors. But these should be interconnected. The best equalizer would be a thicker protector on our back, not foams on our B-lines. (Yes, I imagine a world where a pilot can buy a Submarine with a choice of a 10, 12, or 14 cm protector and have that accepted as an equalizer.)

If we introduce ESS changes and ask pilots to vote on them, I'm 100% sure pilots will vote them out.
Maybe if we'd raced with a new ESS for two years, pilots would have adapted, but I don't think we'll reach that point.

We'll always choose the least resistance and wait until more people die, then we come together and ask what went wrong. And the circle starts again.

Every dangerous sport went through a maturing phase, usually after a shockingly tragic season. In all these sports, fans of the old game were vocally upset. Just a few examples, but the list is really long; I can give 20+ examples:

Rallying: A top crew burned to death & spectators were killed in one season => The FIA banned the ultra-fast Group B cars, and purists cried, “Rally died in ’86.”
Boxing: A fighter died on live TV after 14 rounds => Championship fights were cut to 12 rounds, with critics claiming it “ruined the test of a true champion.”
Pro Cycling: A rider died from a head injury in the Tour de France => Hard-shell helmets became mandatory, upsetting traditionalists who missed the bare-headed look.
Alpine Skiing: Decades of fatal crashes => Courses were tamed with nets and slowed down, which many veterans called too “manicured” and predictable.
Big-Wave Surfing: A series of high-profile drownings => Inflatable safety vests became standard, which purists initially dismissed as “training wheels.”

Somehow in our sport, we do everything to avoid such maturing.

I'm not saying it's an easy task, and what doesn't make it especially easy is that many pilots have lost trust in manufacturers and look at any change coming from them as suspicious.

So I'm not saying it's easy, but we need to at least try to solve this complex problem if we ever want to get out of this circle.