Class E is a whole world of hurt for me having endured 30 years of ignorant push-back from ATS and pilots alike. I saw it work in the US and you can still see it working in many You Tube videos.
Pilots would get the idea if it was everywhere, but having small blocks of it here there and everywhere makes it a foreign environment instead of the normal. To do that unfortunately would cause Airservices to have to create more sectors and therefore start losing money. Currently unlike the US, Canada, and many other countries, their service is required to make money (cost recovery) and pay a dividend to the Federal Government.
Or in the case of MNG, spilt the sectors and staff the damn things.
Our Government seems to have truck loads of money to spend on buildings full of public servants ensuring that old people are not claiming the old age pension when they have assets, (NZ has no such process everyone gets the OAP because it is cheaper to do it that way!) but nothing to spend on employing more ATCs (also de facto public servants) to ensure that all citizens flying in cloud are adequately separated from each other. The Federal Parliament should be embarrassed if not ashamed at such neglect.
I would say it's a case of soft corruption. I don't know people in this country don't see 'user pays' for what it is. You already pay a truckload of tax then get stung with 'user pays' on top.