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I think it should be a case of caveat emptor. Reviews, personal recommendations to find the most skilled people. But regulating who can and cannot do certain skilled tasks always pushes the prices sky high. Even for those other roles you mention.
Invent-
If you feel strongly that you are capable of doing it yourself and dislike the regulatory frameworks so much, why respect them? Just DIY it and deal with any consequences.
If you get it wrong and someone dies you pay a fine. If I do it and someone dies I go to prison. That's the difference between trained and untrained.
If you have been trained you're less likely to disagree with the regulations as part of the training is understanding what the possible problems are. I don't think the regulations are there to create a cartel. They are there to protect people who don't understand the risks.
Regarding competitive pricing, I think that's what you're seeing already. There has to be some standard for electrical work, you wouldn't want shoddy, potentially dangerous work done on your property. The cost to the registered electrician of doing that work is not negligible.
I'm all for electricians charging these sorts of amounts (of course, I am one!), homeowners regularly underestimate work and a tradesman saying it's a small job doesn't mean it's a nothing job. It just means it's not going to take weeks and cost tens of thousands of pounds.
At the moment my experience is there are a lot of big jobs around which trades usually prefer so the smaller jobs are getting high quotes.
I'm all for DIY electrics but after years of winging it I did the course for installation and testing and part p and it was well worth it. At least I learnt my limits :)
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The other thing is there's regulation everywhere. Window manufacture and fitting is regulated. Insulation fitting etc. etc. With electrics the skills required are commonly underestimated. If it was easier there wouldn't be a shortage.
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It's also pretty clear that you're not considering all the problems with providing a caveat emptor service. If I meet you down the pub and agree to do your electrics then 2 years later your child dies because of a fault in the installation, am I going to get implicated?
No electrician wants to be lying in bed at night worrying about the dodgy wiring they've installed to save you some money that could bite them in the ass. Believe me when I tell you there is already plenty of pressure in the commercial market to cut corners.
Airhead
It's like asking yourself why a dentist charges £x for a crown or a lawyer charges £y for 6 minutes.
It doesn't surprise me in the current market. I've had a lot of requests for garden work this year but I'm not registered so I can't do it. Same sort of thing happened when Part P was introduced, couldn't get electrical work done for a while or it was crazy expensive.