the trouble is that all of you are right.
It's an unfortunate fact of life now that risk assessments and all that paperwork bs need to be done. Of course in the past a brigade always did one anyway, it's just that it consisted of a discussion round the bar about benefits vs dangers/costs.
Something the CFS does very badly is introducing new "stuff", whether that's equipment (like PPV fans, radios etc), improved methods of operation, training etc. Most of the time it seems to me it's either foisted on CFS by external forces (eg. CRD changeover to MFS) or pushed and pushed by volunteers (eg. a brigade/group buys something themselves, eg. defibs, TIMS) until eventually it's officially adopted. Very rarely it seems is something new thought up by HQ and trialled - this is happening a bit more now than used to though, to be fair.
I think there needs to be a simple process for people to suggest improvements and an active working group with the motivation and the funding to look at them and investigate further the good ones.