I know exactly what he is trying to say. He is implying the system was "dumbed down". Traffic was still passed, aircraft were still separated. Nothing changed. It's just that one group of people now did both. So those people had to learn a new skill set to operate a whole new airspace category they had previously had nothing to do with. They were always, ALWAYS, going to have to just pass traffic in G (or not if we'd really followed ICAO). Separating was still their bread and butter and they did where it was mandated. They didn't where it was not. It's not deskilling, It's just applying different procedures to the relevant situation.