Well, well...
750XL seems to have been lucky working with really professional CLC-staff.... But let me tell you about one of Western Europes´ most prestigious airlines and their CLC.
1. Not everyone who work at CLC have "set foot on ramp". As a matter of fact some of them never worked as Flight Dispatchers, i.e. they never worked with Load Planning/Weight & Balance!
2. When calling them it is a pretty good chance that the person who answers don´t speak English. I´ve spoken to people who got up and ran around, trying to find an English speaking colleague.
3. Quoting 750XL ¨People typing in the bag figures? Surely the load controller has access to the flight in their relevant system?¨. As I said, you must be working with great CLC:s but normally a CLC-guy is handling several flights and he/she doesn´t have a chance to check balance on all of them during check-in. Getting the final load report can be a nasty surprise....
4. The risk of mistakes when (at least) one more person - 1000 miles away - is involved is pretty obvious.
Finally: Yes, CLC:s are here to stay due to financial reasons but the lack of professionalism still make them scary.