With regard to the Technician privileges proposal, in my opinion, it is fine for the EC to take up the proposal and evaluate its merits.
However, I learned my lesson on RM-11708. Neither that proposal nor a proposal for new allocations for Techs is an urgent matter. Thus, we can afford to be deliberate about our actions in pursuing this proposal. We should not file anything with the FCC until we have had a chance to get member input on it. Though we cannot expect agreement on everything that might be proposed, we should encourage and accept comments from members, and genuinely be prepared to modify the proposal in the face of cogent arguments, or even to abandon the proposed filing if member sentiment is heavily against it.
I have seen a few comments that note that the proposed change would give Techs privileges that the content of the current Element 2 does not prepare them for (frequency allocations and HF operating practice). I would encourage EC to deal with this, since a major feature of the proposal seems to be that Techs would be able to use the new allocation without any additional testing or training.