total nonsense

Try telling that the families of the 96...

Where have I said the original stands where safe as they were?

In your opinion, not in mine and not in others.

You didn't. Your saying there was an over-reaction which is an utterly ridiculous thing to say.

It is not a ridiculous thing to say at all. They made small changes to start with (Removing fences, swing barriers around the pitch etc), then they found the simplest solution, which was to make stadiums all seaters thus meaning every fan in is allocated a seat. But the safe standing thing that is going on is just as safe and with numbering to stop over crowding/overselling.
They could have gone with that from the start but over reacted and said everyone must be seated.

If 96 was not enough, how many have to die at a game for it to be a reasonable reaction?

They found the [isafest[/i solution available [iat the time[/i. Hindsight is great, but in the aftermath of all those deaths the move to all seater stadia was entirely sensible and justified. The fact that other options have developed since that [imight[/i be as safe doesn't change that.

I will concede to that Kosh. Lack of imagination or more likely the overwhelming urge to rid stadia of standing probably pushed the all seaters into action. I am not sure even if someone had come up with the idea of safe standing at the time they would have even given it a second glance. That is why I say it was an over reaction and something like the image below would have been a very good compromise which would have been accepted by most people.

fully agree there
why go back to the bad old days

I think the standing areas in all the new R.L stadiums confirms pretty much what most people thought, a properly supervised, adequately built and maintained terraced stand is as safe as a seated area. What happened at Hillsborough was undoubtedly a terrible tragedy, but when the authorities banned standing at games it was a knee jerk reaction that a lot of people in hindsight can recognise.

Sorry but you can't compare standing at RL grounds to standing at soccer grounds. The crowds are smaller and better behaved so it's inherently safer. And as I've mentioned the decision to ban standing [ionly[/i looks odd in hindsight - at the time there were very few arguing against it as it made good sense.

Of course some standing is safer than seats

I'd rather stand on the sun than sit in the golf stand at CP

Would love to have a standing area at the KC.