I'm not going to say anything else about it as I've seen these arguments turn nasty and I have no intention of getting into one.
As a last thought, I asked a local 738 pilot, who regularly flies into Dublin, what he thought of the Point Merge there. I fully expected the answer to be, "we hate it, it takes too long, uses too much fuel, etc". Instead, "we love it, it works a treat for us, we can fly the aircraft according to our range. etc"
As the original poster seems to intimate, the pilots, our customers, seem to want this rather than be radar vectored all over the sky. I know, a fully trained controller can provide accurate ranges to touchdown, but this isn't what the customer seems to want.
With regards to single runway operations, you just let the first aircraft heading to the merge point get a little further ahead before you clear the next aircraft to the merge point, thus building in your gap for a departure that the tower wants. The system can be made to work according to your airport's requirements and ATC needs.
That is all.
Cheers
