>> In the present game whenever I get new recruits they are pretty useless in skills -usually Mediocre or Average at best.
Earlier versions did have "specialist" and "elite" recruits who had improved scores for some or all stats. I think that still exists in the game files, but currently it is set to 100% "average" recruits. If you dug around and found the files, you could resurrect the other types, and set their chance to spawn etc. Pretty sure there are some old threads on it *somewhere* on the forum, but I couldn't immediately find them, sorry.
As an aside, I have suggested a "Requisition Points" system, where the player would gain a bit more control over what mix of resources they gained at month end (ie in the late game, trade all the now useless pilots and rubbish recruits for 2 or 3 actually good ones, or ask for extra cash one month because you want to finance a new base more quickly, at the expense of your manpower, etc), but I never wrote it up as an FR or anything. I dunno, maybe I should