Ebenezer - as X-Mil (Now Civil) I am inclined to go all watery eyed over my light blue controlling days....but:
is the imbalance of military and ex-military personnel to civil personnel in CAA departments such as its Airspace Policy directorate. This inevitably results in a lack of appreciation of the constraints and demands of running a civil commercially-driven ATC unit where simply indenting for equipment or staff just doesn't happen.
In summary, the civil world is not the cosy cut-and-dried prescriptive and orderly world that military aviation inhabits; and unfortunately, a significant number of the military or ex-military policy-makers in some of the CAA's departments, appear unable or unwilling to grasp this fact.
Taking just one example of this apparent lack of appreciation, the provision of a RAS to a military fast-jet, trainer or helicopter is a completely different situation to providing the same RAS to a Boeing 737 or Boeing 757 with civilian passengers on board, particularly if the phase of flight means that they're not all seated and wearing seat belts.
Nail on the head you have hit. What looks the same is often not the same..at all! How about a few bodies who have held both licenses and who's last operational controlling was not during the cold war advising on policy!
Fred.