Was the dc10 airplane as bad as the media makes it seem to be?

The type rating is required in aircraft that need additional training. It is a safety of flight issue not a for hire issue.

Great book to read is "Wings On My Sleeve" by Eric Brown. Only pilot in the world to have flown most of the airplanes of WWII.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1299333.Wings_on_My_Sleeve

here ya go...
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/jetengine.html
tis physics.

Your question is a good one - but the answer is much more complicated that you would expect. Think about driving your car from point A to point B across a city. Lots of paths - some shorter than others, but the shortest path may not be the quickest. Or the quickest may involve a toll road - and you may or may not be in a hurry.

The usual most important factor (for commercial operations, at least) is to save money, while still arriving on time. Airplanes in the air are subject to the winds aloft, which will generally be at different strengths AND DIRECTIONS at different altitudes. Most airplanes operate more efficiently at higher altitudes (up to limits), but at those higher altitudes the plane may face stiffer headwind. Further, it costs time and fuel to climb to those altitudes, and you will not regain coming down as much as it took going up. [Think of a bicycle on hilly terrain vs. level ground.]

So what's the answer? Well, for most trips the pilot will consider all these factors. They are taught during training how to plan the flight in terms of time and fuel required, and to include in that especially the winds at different altitudes. Then they will pick the altitude, whatever that is, that maximizes the results that they consider most important.

That would be the ground prox system on the aircraft it lets the flight crew know how far they are above the ground during an approach to the landing runway.

amid is Russian

Personally I'd much rather fly in a DC10 than an L1011.

Its easier to control the airplane with that balance, a twin like that would be easier than a single for the same reason that the prop rotation makes the plane easier to turn to one side than the other.