The new North Sea airspace (have you flown on it yet Hugmonster?) came into being in March this year. The airspace was radically restructured because:
1) The old North Sea airspace was generating huge delays due to flow restrictions.
2) The military wanted a bigger danger area in which to fly their Typhoons, when they arrive.
Another change which occurred at about the same time was the introduction of a new class A airway, which was roughly along the lines of the old NORCA (POL-NEW) which allowed civil airliners to safely transit the Vale of York.
The airspace, as it stands now, is basically one big compromise between the CAA and the MoD. Nobody got exactly what they wanted (there wasn't enough space for that), but in the end the airspace was agreed in theory.
As far as I can see, the only people who are disgruntled with the current layout are the MoD, or more specifically, MASOR East. Why? Because they are being inundated with civilian traffic which they really should not have to be controlling. The idea was that all traffic routeing to Newcastle and Teesside from the East would go around via RIMTO and GASKO. But, for one political reason or another, the MoD agreed to give a service to NT/NV in/outbounds wanting to take the shorter route, outside CAS. Unfortunately, due to "profitability", this was EVERYONE. So, the MASOR are currently working their asses off doing our job.
I stand to be corrected, but I think more-or-less everyone in the civil world is quite pleased with the airspace. The capacity has been increased markedly and the sectors no longer cause delays. Happy airlines too, not waiting for a slot because of one inefficient sector. There have been a few teething problems on the ATC side, but that is only to be expected for such a huge change (the biggest ever to UK airspace).
In one part of the programme a civil pilot who had had an Airprox with a military aircraft stated "as I was flying through the Vale of York", he might well of started off by saying "as I was swimming off the Great Barrier Reef with a pork chop tied round my neck".
This statement from a post earlier in the thread more or less says it all really. Although I chuckled, the fact is that if you are flying out there over the Vale of York or the North Sea, below FL245, you can be receiving a service from ANYONE (MASOR East, Pennine Radar, the Lord Almighty) and you're still not necessarily safe. It's class G airspace, open FIR. The pilots in there don't have to be talking to anybody, they don't even have to have a transponder. And that includes military fast jets. "Gungho-ism" doesn't come into it - they aren't breaking any rules. Flying out there in a turboprop is a very, very risky business.
To answer your final question, I take my fam. flights (when I can get them) and consider myself reasonably well informed on the subject of civil aviation. (Do you have any idea what goes on in the world of ATC?) But no, I've never been on the flight deck of a regional airliner. And if the opportunity arose tomorrow to sit in the cockpit for a flight AMS-NCL, I'd stay at home.
LTP