...which betrays a lack of knowledge of aviation beyond the inconveniences of scheduled passenger flight services.

There is an entire world of aviation outside of commercial airlines flying airliners out of large, towered airports with fancy terminal buildings. An aircraft is a vehicle like any other, and operating one is regulated in tiers like any other type of vehicle. It's about as inane to gripe that an untowered recreational airport is not regulated to the same extent as the airports you fly commercially out of, as it would be to gripe that you driving your car out of your home is not regulated to the same extent as driving a school bus.