Honestly, everyone in the airlift business who transits Al Udeid should take it upon themselves to arrange a tour of AMD and the CAOC in general. There is no better way to educate yourself on what works, what doesn't, and why. I spent 4 months of my life in that prison, and while I hated every minute of it, I would have jumped at the chance to take some fellow crew dogs around the building. I'm not even going to try to defend the shit sandwich that gets handed to crews, because I know I handed down a few during my tour. I will say, however, that it is never by choice. Bottom line, if you have a little familiarity with what's going on behind the curtain, you'll be more useful (and helpful) to the guys pulling the strings, and when a request gets denied you'll have an idea why.
Back to the Life Support topic...While I was on active duty there were a few good LS troops who really knew their shit, and the rest were just taking up space. Now that I'm in the Guard, my LS shop is probably the best shop on base - they're proactive and always have the mission in mind. Great group of people back there. On the MX side, in two years here I've never had a troop tell me, "My T.O. says it's within limits." While on AD, if I went 2 consecutive flights without hearing that, I'd begin to wonder what planet I was on. Recently I brought an airplane back with a gyro that I "thought was about to fail" and told the crew chief why. The next time that airplane flew there was a new gyro in it. No questions asked.
There are a lot of reasons for the differences between the way AD and the ARC works, but I think a lot of it boils down to "pride in ownership." If you can figure out a way to instill that sense in AD troops, you just might solve a lot of problems. If everyone in the Air Force truly understood the mission and their role in making the whole machine work, you wouldn't have reflective belts, sock checks, or confrontations over PT gear.