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It takes a brave person to admit he or she has got it wrong, after a long period of investing in an unconvincing idea.

I have a suspicion that, even though the debate is timely, the dominant ideas that have emerged from the City watchdog's retail distribution review in a mad rush to satisfy the panting thirst of political Rottweilers, will fit neatly in to this category. It is in danger of missing the boat.

Regulators have a tendency to focus on their rear view mirrors as they drive, admiring the dexterity with which they narrowly avoided crashing, rather than focusing on the road ahead and delivering their passengers safely to their destinations.

Forget for a minute the frills, the background mutterings, which has become part and parcel of this noisy conversation; forget also the obsessive, time-consuming, often self-serving calls for more qualifications; forget also the patent Animal Farm-like nonsense of fees good, commission bad.

Some advocates of fees – which is not in itself a bad thing – have been howling like wolves at anyone who dares suggest that all we are talking about is remuneration for a job well done.

Crappy advice remains crappy no matter how highly qualified the adviser or planner, or how he or she is paid. The focus must remain on the quality of advice or the comprehensive nature of the financial plan the client receives.

The worry, of course, is that instead of giving impartial advice financial advisers too often concentrate on selling products.

How about this as a proposal then: separate advice from sales and, while you are at it, how about regulating the products so that they deliver what they promise on the tin?

In this way, there will be a clear demarcation line between manufacturers' responsibilities, up to and including the use by date and proper guidelines for use, and those of the sales person, including selling products unfit for purpose.

Such a system would leave advisers and planners to concentrate on advising their clients, who will then be free to purchase the recommended product from any approved distributor.

Take, for example, the family doctor. A patient goes to a family doctor who diagnoses his illness and prescribes a course of medication.

That patient can then obtain the medication from the doctor's in-house pharmacy, from a high street chemist such as Boots or from a small independent pharmacy, all the time assuming that the person dispensing the medication is qualified and registered to do so. It is a simple familiar model.

This fits in with the state's objective on financial health, which is now shared by the rest of society: to help Joe and Jo Public to provide decent financial support for the various stages in their lives, and especially during the long period of retirement.

But the medical profession has also undergone tremendous radical change and is still in the process of changing further, if Lord Darzi's latest proposals get through parliament.

Professional services, like any other trade or occupation, must evolve and so must financial advice.

In any case, what is so special about being a solicitor, or accountant, the other two preferred professional models? There are other professionals who do a far better job for society which financial advisers and financial planners could well emulate.

It may make a better case if there were certain pre-entry condition attached to being a financial adviser or planner, including conventional academic qualifications and making whatever new paper qualifications practitioners may be compelled to obtain post-graduate ones.

The suggestion that going off to a reformed polytechnic to study financial services will fit the bill is like suggesting that getting a PhD in journalism studies from a college above Boots in the high street equips the innocent holder of such a dubious qualification to be the next James Cameron.

In financial advice and planning, like journalism, nothing replaces hard graft: talking to people, looking them in the eye, then coming up with a proposal to fit their current and future needs.

Further, it is not a one-off event, but one that must be reviewed and tweaked regularly by agreement between client and adviser – bi-annually or annually or monthly even – to fit changes in lifestyle and circumstances.

This is the juncture at which the regulator comes in, by policing the boundaries of the profession, making sure that rogues and those with ill intent do to penetrate; thereby allowing the profession to be its own internal police with a strict disciplinary code, protecting clients from abuse and with a system of redress.

Let us look at solicitors, the most inappropriate and dysfunctional of the models. Some of us may remember when to be a solicitor (or accountant) one had to be articled to an older practitioner, serve out an apprenticeship (what an old fashioned word), before being let loose on the great British public.

The profession had two distinct branches which determined not only status, but contact with the public. Barristers, in their wigs and robes, had exclusive access to the higher courts, while the public had to go through a solicitor to get access to a barrister.

Reforms over a decade ago created the new profession of solicitor-advocate, with access to the high courts; solicitors can now also be Queen's Counsels and may even be appointed high court judges.

Further, since the Clementi Review of legal services in 2004, there has been a move towards multi-disciplinary services, the so-called Tesco proposals.

We have also seen the post-Enron new approaches to accounting, from fair value to market value and everything in between.

By opting for these conservative, outdated models of professionalism the RDR is in danger of missing the boat.

The current turbulence in the financial markets tell the story: banks in trouble, car manufacturers going cap in hand to Capitol Hill begging to be bailed out and the airline sector about to crash – all based on traditional business models.

The successful global businesses are based on mavericks: Microsoft, Google, Dyson, Virgin (the exception among airlines) – all created by innovative risk-takers and continue to operate in non-conventional ways.

A regulatory straight jacket will stifle innovation, prevent advisers from being innovative and, most of all, stop providers from designing products to fit the needs of clients.

Whatever happens, we must not allow 25 November to be D-Day, the moment when innovation stops and box-ticking begins. The industry must not allow the global financial crisis to put a premature stop to a continuing robust debate on how best to advise individuals on their financial needs and the products to meet those need.

Hal Austin is managing editor of Financial Adviser