they leave the controller in the Class D airspace below (normally one person) to be responsible for procedural separation in huge amounts of Class C.
Keh? On departure out of Alice, we get handed to Melbourne Centre by 8000ft normally. Huge volume? You're being a tad dramatic methinks. On arrival, we get handed over to the tower at about 45nm, but that is for obvious reasons.
So Dick, by saying that extra controllers would be required to run C over D, you are implying that there is obviously a lot of VFR traffic in E. That very traffic, in E over D, would then become invisible apart from a shaky transponder requirement in a non-radar environment where there is no need or indeed no way of checking that said transponder is actually working.
I think it is you who needs to open up your mind. This is not DC-3 verses low-perf low speed lighty of the 50s and 60s. As I have said numerous times, nobody in their right mind in this day and age, if designing a piece of airspace, would knowingly mix no-radio VFR with IFR, especially high-cap, transponder or not. Get over it, Dick. E is is from a bygone era.