I'll clarify. One, it is NOT "strictly against procedures to be doing this, and a termination offense" to teach a fellow crew member about PBS while on duty, especially if you use a pen and paper. The no laptops thing is not a federal reg, but an airline specific policy. An example of federal regs specifying prohibited behavior in the cockpit is the 'Sterile Cockpit' rule - essentially, during critical phases of flight, non-essential conversation is prohibited. This is defined to include all flight below 10,000' MSL, taxi, takeoff, and landing.
I'll give you my personal perspective. Nobody obeys all the rules. At every company I've ever seen, people are always violating SOME rule or reg, generally not intentionally. Flying is not an exception. When you spend 10,000+ hours in an aircraft, when you know every quirk, knob, switch & controller, you get a pretty good sense of what's important and when it's important, and when it's not. When we were still in the 'learning phase' of aviation (up until the 1970's, roughly), the expertise of the pilots up front usually exceeded the expertise of the regulators by a large amount (kinda like IT today...). So, the Feds did something very intelligent - they came up with FAR 91.3 & 91.13:
91.3: (a) The pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft.
(b) In an in-flight emergency requiring immediate action, the pilot in command may deviate from any rule of this part to the extent required to meet that emergency.
(c) Each pilot in command who deviates from a rule under paragraph (b) of this section shall, upon the request of the Administrator, send a written report of that deviation to the Administrator.
This is the authority to do as the PIC sees fit. It is the entire basis of a Captain's authority - and it assumes that Captains know better than any one else how to command their craft. This has generally proven to be a good assumption - since the pilot is usually the first to arrive at the scene of an accident, he/she is highly motivated not to be in one... if you pick your pilots carefully. But to make sure that this authority is not abused...
91.13: (a) Aircraft operations for the purpose of air navigation. No person may operate an aircraft in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.
(b) Aircraft operations other than for the purpose of air navigation. No person may operate an aircraft, other than for the purpose of air navigation, on any part of the surface of an airport used by aircraft for air commerce (including areas used by those aircraft for receiving or discharging persons or cargo), in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.
The key words are 'Careless and Reckless Operation'. What it means is, if you fly in a careless or reckless manner, the FAA will nail you. Your actions, even if they don't specifically violate another reg, if they are 'careless' or 'reckless' - violate this one. How do you know what's careless & reckless? Well, if you have an accident, the presumption is you were careless, or reckless. These guys? They will DEFINITELY be hit for the 'careless' part. This is a catch-all - it means, at any time, your actions as a pilot can be held up to scrutiny, and if they are found to be 'careless or reckless', you are toast.
These laws were very good - it allowed pilots to experiment with how to run a plane, but held them responsible if something screwed up. Over time, best of breed techniques were discovered, spread from crew to crew, standardized by airlines, and ultimately adopted as Federal law - the FARs. Of course, accidents, once their root cause was discovered, frequently led to regulations as well. Overall, I think this was an excellent way to turn a fledgling, risky industry, into the mature and extremely safe one it currently is.
Times change. Aviation's period of discovery is essentially over. We know safe practices, engineering, weather, training... the main thing stopping aviation from being safer is cost. Accidents are so rare that to significantly reduce their rate would require a massive & expensive overhaul that no one seems significantly interesting in doing. Requiring datalinks for almost realtime updates of doppler wx radar might have helped the Air France that went in over the Atlantic - but it costs lots of money to install that. Better rest rules, so fatigued pilots aren't flying. But that would require more pilots per flight hour - that would cost more. I could go on with many more examples...
So - what cheap ways can we improve safety? Since 80% of accidents nowadays are, to some extent, caused by 'pilot error', regulating what pilots do and don't do seems like a free way to improve things. Of course, expecting human beings to follow increasingly minute rules and regs ad infinitum is... somewhat unrealistic.
An example. The procedure many airlines still use to determine if an airplane has accumulated significant icing during a taxi in icing conditions are pretty basic. In many cases, a pilot has to walk to the back of the aircraft, peer out the windows (typically at the overwing emergency exit rows) with a flashlight, and determine by eye if the wing has accumulated significant ice - a primitive, but effective procedure. A F/O who did this didn't tell the passengers who got out of his way to refasten their seatbelts when he left, and for this, he and the Captain were violated by a Fed watching a few rows away. The passengers, despite not being specifically instructed, figured out to refasten their seat belts anyway - but a reg was violated, and so was the crew. Perhaps we need a more advanced way to determine if an airframe has accumulated significant ice on a taxiout instead? You can trace all the regs about icing on taxiout to the Air Florida guys who went in out of DCA back in the 1980's. They were dopey, to be sure, but the present byzantine procedures are not much better. There is such a thing as too much regulation, or inappropriate regulation, or 'theatre' regulation (think security theatre for my meaning).
So, in summary - most experienced airline pilots know how to fly, or they wouldn't have lived that long, or people wouldn't have entrusted expensive airplanes and fragile passengers to them. You figure out how to aviate, navigate, and communicate, in that order - you run a safe and efficient ship, following best practices and conservative decision-making, following the rules and regs to the best of your ability - and then you can pretty much do as you wish. You can stare at the awesome beauty of a +60,000 foot thunderstorm, watch the Northern Lights grace the sky, amaze yourself at the vast deserts that are the American West... talk about the Yankees, or the mathematics of horizon distance, or the cute flight attendants (yes, we still have a few)... or the divorce, the loss of your son when he died in an accident, about burying your parents. In short, you are humans with lives locked in a little box in a little tube in a big sky for more than a full year of your life (8800 hours = 1 year) . You should NEVER forget your primary responsibility - flying safely. But beyond that... I think it's not any one else's business. These guys are done - but they should be. Should we now outlaw every form of electronic device in a cockpit? Non-essential conversation at all times during flight?
Let me put it slightly differently. 40,000 people die every year in the U.S.A. in car accidents, the majority caused by drivers violating rules. I suggest that any rule we come up with for airline pilots should also be applied to drivers. Since drivers outkill airline pilots, on average, by 1000 to 1, I think we need to regulate drivers more. Drivers should be randomly drug tested. All cellphones, texting, radios, TV's, GPS navigators, and non-essential conversation should be outlawed, at a minimum. Install speed regulators in cars; allow cops, at any time, to pull you over for any reason. And allow you to be banned from driving for life if you are caught driving carelessly or recklessly. If you question the necessity of such rules, please question similar rules for airline pilots. I'm not arguing no more rules are necessary or desirable - simply we should be a little more careful and thoughtful about them.