To address a few points:
I am sure if me or anyone else was to take a look at, for example, the terms and conditions and rules governing the way a Train Driver does their job it would probably look odd to most of us. However they are probably in there for a very good reason on the grounds it is an important job that can involve carrying up to 1,000 people on a train. If I am on a train you can be sure I want the driver suitably rested and able to do the job properly and having that written into a rule book stops pressure being brought to bear on the driver to skip breaks when trains overrun (for example).
Now that isn't to say things shouldn't evolve as the purpose of the railway changes from time to time, the most recent being the acceleration of people working from home since lockdown, but it does need to be thought through.
As for subsidising trains, this country has developed over the last couple of centuries where a lot of institutions have based themselves in the cities, especially London. In broad terms Beeching did away with village stations and if we started doing the same with town ones that would stop a lot of people outside of cities accessing these institutions for work or leisure purposes and create a massive imbalance. Renting or buying in cities is beyond many people so we have created a commuter class that need access to trains as they live away from work.
For example Thameslink 2000 was sold with direct trains from Littlehampton going through the core and they now only going to London Bridge, which is returning things exactly where they started before several billion pounds worth of public money was spent. The country outside of cities need a subsidised railway unless you want to increase the divide between cities and elsewhere.
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