I don't think that's entirely fair. Yes, they seem very conservative and often taking a punitive approach, but: https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/07/20210728-g100ul.htm... "FAA approves first high-octane unleaded avgas", for medical certification there's now BasicMed, the new light airplane certification standards mentioned in the article are a lot less prescriptive than the old ones, and they're now working on the MOSAIC changes to make special-airworthiness certificate rules more flexible.
BasicMed came from Congress, not the FAA. And true to congressional style, it disproportionately benefits the elderly - it requires you had a valid medical within the past 10 years, which helps if age related health issues stop you from renewing, but not if you were never eligible for one in the first place.
Not true, the requirement is to ever have had a 3rd class medical. So yes, you still need to see a medical examiner once, but after that you never have to again.
And I'd argue it does not benefit the elderly, it benefits everyone. Instead of having to find and pay a hundred bucks to a medical examiner every two years I can now accomplish this by having a chat with my primary physician, which I see anyway, every four years. I think it's hugely beneficial to all recreational pilots.
But you're right in that the FAA had to be forced to do it.
So I looked this up [1] and it turns out we're both wrong - you need to have had a valid medical at some time after 2016-07-14.
That date is exactly 10 years before congress passed the Basic Med law, so when basic med was new, it was "in the last 10 years", but the law pinned it to a specific date, not a specific number of years in the past.
