So all of that rigmarole
No, it was the system. It was 30 years ago, and coordination similar to that probably happened 100 times a day throughout the country. You cannot look back at the system as it was in those times, and apply todays expectations to it. Airspace management in the main was vastly different, and this incident was subject to the rules in play at that time. Cries of "why didn't they just....?", or "he should have been...." are just specious.