Ferris,
Of course as a Controller you want to do something however I suspect that one of the Accident Report findings will be that having allowed the aircraft to get too close the controller would have been better to have done nothing. The DHL 611had already left its cruise altitude and was descending. If the BTC 2937 had done nothing (or followed TCAS) there would have been a very close Near Miss however there should not have been an accident.
In the past there was a theory that mid-air collisions during the cruise normally involved the same type of aircraft because of the instrument error in the altimeters was the same. I suspect that one of the side effects of RVSM is less instrument error, more accurate altimeters and more aircraft at exactly the same level.; the same way that more accurate lateral navigation has reduced the scatter of aircraft down airways.
Standard_Departure.
Estimates have not generally been given in Europe of some years. "Radar Contact" is normally the answer to the initial call.