Adam, I think you'll find it less surprising when I tell you that some of the more recently valid controllers at Nats and a vast proportion of the up and coming validations have never set foot on to the flight deck of an aircraft. Some of them haven't even been on a plane as a passenger.
Lack of familiarisation with what happens on the flight deck is a problem which is going to become markedly worse for Nats ATCOs in the near future.
