I went to a joint CAA / NATS presentation at Barton last night. It was interesting. I think the general idea behind it all is to make sure people are fully aware of the benefits of each service and what exactly each service can offer. The speaker basically said that the old services had become mishaped and unsafe due to a lack of consistency, ie when received a FIS, people were getting a FIS from some units and a RIS from others. So although the new services may seem similar to the old ones, the fact is that the old ones had become dilluted and were offering more than they should have in some cases. In turn, this had led to airproxes etc as people were used to be being told about traffic more than they should have.
The feel I got was that the new services are therefore redesigned in order to ensure people get what they ask for, although if a unit decide that they must provide an extra service to avoid a potential collision, they can do. One thing that was said, was that the traffic service is very similar, if not the same as the old RIS.