Supe -
I suspect there is a broad spectrum of issues within this very topic on which you and I would be in violent agreement. No so much the solutions to those issues, but the issues themselves.
In the regulated environments in which I've operated (securities and vitamin/nutritional supplements), there has almost never been a "ratcheting down" of the strictness or scope of the requirement. I can't name one, but I can't say there's "never" been one.
Like any other profession, public or private, the majority of people do their jobs to the best of their ability (though the ability level differs between public and private, in my experience). The crux of our other-topic disagreement is the relative ease w/ which the "market" can correct inadequacies/corruption and make accountable those whose a$$es should be in slings vs. the relative impossiblity of such accounting and improvements in the public sector. It's just been my experience that it works that way, and maybe you're taking it personally. You shouldn't. If I took every lawyer joke personally, I'd be a miserable bastard. Oh, wait...
JP