From my perspective, I think the hardass 80s way was fine. Not just because I survived it, but because if you consider the responsibility being bestowed upon a dips**t 19 or 20 year old, we NEED to have the highest quality possible. Nuke wastes don't mean they are bad sailors, and other rates benefited highly from their presence. Hell, with out them A-Gang would have fallen apart completely. Sonar girls would have been totally limpwristed. IMO it's only the presence of these fine upstanding individuals, the Nuke Wastes, that saved these divisions. Ok, I'm being a wee bit tongue in cheek there, but the thrust of it's the truth.
We don't do our fleet any good by codling these kids in the pipeline. It just means there are more troubles the boats have to deal with when these idiots who never should have made it past Week 2 of NPS show up. The boats need to be focused on operations, not on having to worry about idiots operating nuclear power plants.
As an old salt, I was always glad and confident that when I went on watch in Maneuvering that the guys in the Engine Room were top quality, and you could rely on them no matter what. With the fallen standards I've heard about (and it may have been exaggerated, and I hope it is) I worry for our fleet. It means that when the chips are down, good people will die needlessly. The record of the Nuclear Navy is impeccable, in part due to our high quality training.