As a former Shoe CO once told me: morale is for the enlisted guys.
Anyway, the current Navy 'everybody gets a pin' trend started when one of the previous MCPONs (West, I think?) advocated a policy that everybody should have earned their warfare qual before making First, like the sub guys do. A lot of the specialties didn't have pins (like the Seabees and SWCCs), and others were effectively but not technically warfare quals (NAC, for example).
Nobody asked me, but I kind of liked the old Navy way of doing things were a pin meant you'd qualified to do something - dive a submarine, fly a plane, what have you - not just finished a PQS. Qualifying as a UAV operator or payload operator would seem to fall under that category. It's a different skill from flying a manned aircraft, so a different badge would be appropriate. At the very least, NAO wings would suit for those who qualify as AVOs/MPOs and don't already have NA/NFO/NAC wings.
Anyway, the current Navy 'everybody gets a pin' trend started when one of the previous MCPONs (West, I think?) advocated a policy that everybody should have earned their warfare qual before making First, like the sub guys do. A lot of the specialties didn't have pins (like the Seabees and SWCCs), and others were effectively but not technically warfare quals (NAC, for example).
Nobody asked me, but I kind of liked the old Navy way of doing things were a pin meant you'd qualified to do something - dive a submarine, fly a plane, what have you - not just finished a PQS. Qualifying as a UAV operator or payload operator would seem to fall under that category. It's a different skill from flying a manned aircraft, so a different badge would be appropriate. At the very least, NAO wings would suit for those who qualify as AVOs/MPOs and don't already have NA/NFO/NAC wings.