In its just-released paper, FAA Needs to Better Prepare for Impending Wave of Controller Attrition, The Government Accounting Office says the FAA's headed for trouble.
Not only are the FAA's hiring practices inadequate to the task of hiring the thousands of controllers who will be needed as the post-PATCO hires retire over the next few years, the FAA's ideas of extending their retirement age past 56 will present safety issues, as well.

Although the exact number and timing of the controllers’ departures is impossible to determine, attrition scenarios developed by both FAA and GAO indicate that the total attrition will grow substantially in the short and long terms. As a result, FAA will likely need to hire thousands of air traffic controllers in the next decade to meet increasing traffic demands and to address the anticipated attrition of experienced controllers, predominately because of retirement.

The FAA hasn't, for whatever reasons, implemented a human resources strategy to deal with the impending retirements, which, the GAO figures, will double over the next few years.

FAA has not developed a comprehensive human capital workforce strategy to address its impending controller needs. Rather, FAA’s strategy for replacing controllers is generally to hire new controllers only when current, experienced controllers leave. GAO’s review identified challenges that FAA will face in trying to ensure that well-qualified new controllers are available when needed. For example, FAA’s hiring process does not adequately take into account the potential increases in future hiring and the time necessary to fully train replacements. In addition, there is uncertainty about the ability of FAA’s new aptitude test to identify the best controller candidates. Further, FAA has not addressed the resources that may  be needed at its training academy and for providing on-the-job training at its control facilities in order to handle the large influx of new controllers and to ensure that FAA’s controller workforce will continue to have the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform its critical mission. Finally, exemptions to the age-56 separation rules raise safety and equity issues that FAA has not assessed.

NATCA Responded:

"This report says it all," said John Carr, president of the controllers' union. "We're going to lose one in every three controllers we have in the next five years, and the Federal Aviation  Administration's plans are inadequate for making up for that shortfall."

The whole report will make you want to get your own ultralight, and stay out of controlled airspace altogether. That idea, if implemented on a giant scale, would surely initiate its own set of problems...

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02591.pdf, www.natca.org