As we seem hell bent on the old (very old) officer v civi debate, i've been amused over the years how many pc observers have been dead set against civilianisation of the role.....until around 18 months from their pension date!
I work with 2/3rds of the civilian TFOs and in my opinion they're amongst the finest of the 40 or so I've worked with, give me an experienced civi observer over an over confident police know it all just off the 3 weeks/6 hour TFO course any day. It takes a longer time to get rid of the pre-conceived ideas as it does to train them. Teamwork is what it's about, as long as we keep fighting over the basics of who we are, we're really not going to be making the most of whats left.