Barra Tuesday hit the nail on the head by stating that engineers often - but not always - tell the operational staff what is good for them. BIIIIIIIIIG Mistake. If you don't take the controllers along the development road with you, you will fail folks. The modern radar label that you will see where the Mode C will cancel the Cleared flight level on reaching CFL or where the Cooordinated level disappears when the CFL equals it, was invented by controllers in 1983 down in a Pub in Bournmouth, lubricated by much beer. Does NERC use this? Probably not as I think that they only input on the paper strip. I stand to be corrected. The modern equivalent of that label is still the basis of design today.
The problem facing controllers now is that with all the decision tools, what happens when the three pin plug is removed from the socket? Will they have the ability to seperate procedurally? LATCC had these failures many years ago and I thank my lucky stars that I had been a procedural controller in the past. Continuation training for these occasions will be increasingly necessary to ensure an adequate level of safe operation in unusual circumstances.