F3G, interesting that central security manages to work at FRA. My overall impression is that a plane load at a time seems more manageable than a central check. It would be interesting to know the comparitive costs of central security vs checks at the gate, in terms of personnel/equipment requirements and queueing times.
Personally, I like the checks at the gate - another advantage of this is you distribute people throughout the entire airport complex and do no have a large 'target' close to the entrances of the buildings...However, gate checks do somewhat limit taking a bottle of water etc on board with you. Swings and roundabouts I suspect, but I do agree there is precious little investment or full utilisation of existing equipment in the UK.
MAN T1 has added an extra 3 or 4 lanes to the security and it has made a significant difference, last time I was there (27th Aug) all the lanes were operational and I passed through security in about 10 mins. They do seem to be doing things a little better at MAN than at the BAA airports...