What it meant for us newbies was, of course, that all the senior posts in the Branch had already been filled. And our careers (beyond automatic promotion to flt lt) would remain on hold until “age wearied them” and the cork finally popped out of the bottle to make room for our generation.
When I was a young pilot in 1962 I was being shown the ropes on the station Anson by a knarled old Master Pilot. When descibing the limitations of it he mentioned its usefullness in mitigating the above problem.
When things started to go wrong then you are in it to your neck. You don't have the power to get over it, the range to get round it or the speed to run away from it. The Welsh hills and the Lake District bear silent witness to innumerable disasters where things have gone wrong. It has its uses though, because when they crash they normally have a high proportion of senior officers on board so it is useful way of clearing out bottlenecks on the promotion ladder.