How did we cope before the mid-nineties, when the wave of ops support arrived to save us?
Better than we do now?
Used aircrew on a ground tour and with relevant type experience as Ops Officers?
Used clerks and AATC as Ops Assistants?
Worked for 20-odd years in my own experience, but then of course we have to re-invent the wheel periodically - normally one with corners to replace the roundish one that had done a perfectly adequate job up to the point of re-invention.
Quite why the RAF did need a whole new branch to sit in Ops rooms sharpening chinagraphs, tidying up the charts in Flight Planning, and noting down requests for PDs from various other airfields was never very well explained.