>does it always take a close call like this (or worse) to bring up such a proposal?

At this point yes. There is a saying that "FAA regulations are written in blood" as a result.

It seems conservative on the surface but at this point the current system is incredibly safe and making changes without clear huge upsides isn't worth the risk of unintended consequences.

Pilot attention is at a premium during landing. The computer shouting "localizer" at you during an approach because you're misaligned might be the straw that breaks the cognitive burden's back while you're trying to deal with another crisis.

Also, what Air France 447 showed us was that excessive automation becomes a problem when it is assumed to always work. The recommendations about more systems are all very well but there are 1000s of international airports who are either not going to have these systems or sometimes they won't work. What is critical is that pilots follow their checklists and that 1 action would have prevented this happening despite the fact that the other systems could have warned about it.

Making NOTAMs and the like more clear just seems like good design. They should certainly be able to prioritise information or only show what is relevant for a particular flight/aircraft/location/approach so you only have to read 3 things instead of 50.