Keg, I wasn't responding to you either- the quote was taken from waren9's post. I was talking about (from an ATC perspective) the use or not of n/s levels.
In oz, although being a legitimate sep standard, we never used assigned rates of climb/descent. In the international environment, people do it all the time. N/S levels used for cruise in oz, not elsewhere (M.E.).
Could go into a big post about risk and the GAFA, but no time. Agree with DD that there will prob be a knee-jerk rule made. It's the way modern management operate.
FR: the world is moving away from opp direction tracks, which is the only place where offsetting helps. But where opp dir. tracks still exist- yes, offset should be mandated (in the RPT world).