As one who has made the transition from paper to electronics, I have to say that although some of your concerns are valid, many are not. When the system was installed here there was for a time a paper back-up provided in case of a failure. I don't think they were ever needed.
The tower here is staffed by controllers only. There are no support staff, but the electronics do away with most of their task anyway, so why have them just in case? So much coordination can be achieved without resorting to using the telephone. We have a separate apron function who use the system and so stand allocation etc is done electronically. Airborne times, landing times and a host of other data is transmitted automatically (and much invisibly) without any input required from the controller.
One click or touch of the screen and the times are sent to whoever else needs to know them and is capable of receiving them. I don't spend any more time heads down than I used to. Instead of writing data in a box, I just click or touch and it's done.
The time taken to build FDEs (strips) was one concern I read about. The system has the ability to have "quick-write" FDEs (for checkers and regular users etc) available in their own "NEW" page. By the time the person for whom I'm building the data, tug, vehicle or aircraft has finished speaking, the FDE is built and in its place in the display and I am able to carry on. It's much faster that handwriting and you know it's going to be legible!
The mistake that could be made is trying to integrate a stand alone system without making use of its capabilities in other agencies such as Approach control and the airport operators. If you install this system as just a strip display, you are only using a fraction of its qualities and frankly, wasting time and money. Why have somebody phoning down airborne times when it can be done automatically and safely?
Anyone at Manchester remember the VCR-ACC camera trial? All the effort that went into that only for it to be canned. You can have a mimic of the tower controller's display and see exactly what's coming, on what heading and in what order, on a screen that is perfectly readable and doesn't shake! That's got to be progress.
...I don't think many ATCOs have had input either!
The system should be installed with ATCO input, but what you get isn't the final fit. It can be endlessly adapted to suit changing requirements and/or procedures as
looneykeycode alludes to.
2 sheds
Your fears about emergency situations or go-arounds I don't think are valid. You can cock the strip (yellow or black here). You can coordinate a heading silently with Approach. What you feel the need to scribble, doesn't have to be scribbled on a strip. We're not completely electronic, we still have paper available, although some people's pens were replaced with crayons for their own safety!
Gonzo
We too have RIMCAS with some false alarms. We have a Tower Radar that occasionally doesn't convert. It also has a warning function for parallel approaches, but it works! We don't get as anal as NATS does about stuff that may have glitches. It's not very productive to have someone behind a desk filling in log sheets is it? What you need to ask is why doesn't it work, not how many times doesn't it work? Then either get it fixed or get your money back and buy something that does work.
Change shouldn't be feared. Yes jobs will be lost but that's true in the modern automated world. How many buses still have a conductor? Are they less safe? Yes things can fail. It's as true in aviation as in any other walk of life. The professionals that work within it though, are very capable and are well trained to cope when things fail. The benefits of this system far outweigh the perceived threats and failings.