BB
Sorry, not a tower flower, so can't answer 1 & 3 -will try to elicit a response from someone more knowledgeable. Does seem a bit unusual to use the cat II/III holds when it's not necessary, though. (By the way, that's also a large part of the reason for the huge spacing in LVPs - it's a long way from the hold to line up, especially from the northern side of 12L/30R)
As for the departures, the main problems are :-
1. departure splits CANNOT be used as the initial turns are not IMMEDIATELY after takeoff. (under review)
2. successive departures MUST be separated on handover to radar - otherwise the radar controller has a sep loss as soon as he receives the traffic.
3. UAE radar currently requires a minimum of 10nm in trail for successive departures through RANBI / DARAX (INCLUDING OMSJ/OMDM/OMRK/OMJA traffic!) so not much point launching them 3 miles apart - although some of our colleagues upstairs have trouble understanding this! This is now significantly more important if the new para zone at Mina Seyahi is active, as the options for the departures guy to gain spacing are severely restricted.
Keep 'em coming.
Guy.