About the "pause": there are two ways of getting rid of a queue. either you increase the rate of people leaving it, or you reduce the rate of people joining it.
Mathematically, if the rate joining is greater than the rate leaving, the queue grows at a rate given by the ratio between the two. (E.g. if one person is processed an hour, and two people arrive every hour, the queue grows by one person per hour.) If the rate joining is less, it shrinks. If they are equal the queue remains at its current size. If a queue exists and isn't growing or shrinking, this tells us that the rates are currently equal but a backlog developed at some point in the past. To get rid of it you have to process people (or whatever) faster than they arrive, so that you're both dealing with the arrivals and working through the backlog.
Seeing as close to half the total capacity is being used to refresh people stuck in the queue, it makes a lot of sense to turn the tap off until the queue can be cleared, and it's something that can be done much quicker than adding more capacity. In fact, given how fast a queue can grow and the fact that adding more capacity takes time, it may even be *impossible* to get rid of it by adding capacity. (If the queue growth during the time it takes to get more capacity in place is more than the increment of new capacity....)
Obviously this is a mess and says terrible things about ASCENT, the MFTS, and everyone involved...which is why, perhaps, putting the boot into Wigston about culture war issues might serve an unattributable briefer's interests...