Scroggs;
Personally I think that prior to Capt. upgrade all pilots should go through a days training on ATC and what really goes on <G>... I have had both newbies and multi thousand hour Capt's. in my classes and it is amazing at what some pilots think ATC can or should do <G>.
If the UK doesn't have something similar to our Operation Raincheck classes, they should think about having them. There is one Scot who was on here a while back who has been to one of our classes and he can best report as to what he thought. Like you said, we can't answer all the questions in an eight hour day ( sometimes longer) but we can put a very good dent in it, and show you in such a way that just typing about it on here can not even compare with...
That said, we also need to have controllers in the jumpseat as well as in the sims to see what is happening in your neck of the woods. Well most of them, we do have some ATP rated folks here flying jets too...
regards
Scott