Nothing new, sadly, in any of this. From the moment that the CAA required that all licence administration was registered with them, problems started. It was clear that they had not calculated the amount of work that it would involve but pressed on. One can only imagine the piles of file boxes containing unprocessed submissions. All this in the hope that, one day, they would catch up. Of course, it was never to be admitted. It must be that it will remain a "failing of the applicant". I recall a senior examiner charged with blaming all but the CAA itself, putting to me that 40% of applications contained errors. Needless to say that, in my experience, much of this was not the applicant but rather the CAA's own maladministration, and I told him so. He didn't put up much resistance
As an Examiner and CFI I had always been meticulous in keeping records, including photocopies and scans. Years later as the above posts demonstrate, doing so has been invaluable to so many over the years. No doubt the CAA are praying that the new online processes will resolve all this whilst no doubt blind to automation errors, that will bring its own issues.