A320 Captain reports failure of Maintenance to diagnose and repair log book write-ups. Feels the problem is systemic in the maintenance structure.

Narrative

Aircraft had been refused the previous day for #2 EPR inoperative. Write-up had been cleared after some technical fix overnight. My First Officer found a bird stuck in the #2 EPR probe on walkaround. Obviously no Mechanic checked the basic components of the EPR system. If our maintenance personnel are not finding simple problems like this; our aircraft maintenance is nonexistent. The previous day we were given an aircraft that had a Wing Anti-Ice ECAM written up and signed off by mechanics several days in a row. Basically; nothing obvious was found and it was cleared as operations ok; no defects found. We were going into light freezing rain at ZZZ1. I called Maintenance to discuss. When he realized that this was most likely going to recur; he sent the plane to the hangar and the flight was canceled. We were deadheaded to ZZZ2. By carrying write-ups; aircraft maintenance conditions have become our worst enemy. We have a real problem with maintenance and we need to get ahead of it before someone gets hurt.