whowhenwhy, we could be in danger of creating a mutual admiration society!
On the matter of determining the need for different levels of ATS, I can recall a time when the CAA had a sort of policy to determine when ATC was needed but never really applied it. There was also a policy at that time which was intended to determine when CAS should be established, it was applied rigorously when some facilities reached the defined criteria (set by number of flights and bums on seats), but quietly ignored when some other facilities clearly met those same criteria.